Fathimasstudio

The relief, seen from the side

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

Not every picture stays on paper. This relief was cast in the Glenwood studio as a test for a cover that needed a shadow, not more line. Left white so the light from the Berea side of the room does the drawing.

It is one cast. The illustration that came out of it is simpler than the object, which is the correct outcome.

What the black field is for

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

Some illustration jobs need a field, not a scene. This one was made as a ground for a title: even black, a few gestures that break, nothing that fights the words.

Painted in Glenwood and posted because it is useful. A black field that is slightly warm reads better under type than a black from the tube.

February, and the orange will not settle

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

Commission work slows down in February. The illustrator used the gap for a picture that is only about the temperature in the room: orange across most of the surface, one blue so the orange has an edge.

It is not a landscape. Anyone who has tried to work in Durban that month will recognise it anyway.

A violet that only works in the humidity

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

Drawn in February, when the studio does not dry out overnight. The second, darker pass at the lower edge was put down the next morning, after the first wash had gone soft rather than crisp.

That is a Durban problem and also the reason the sheet is worth keeping. Inland, this study would have dried into something flatter.

Drawing the harbour, not the ships

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

The brief was a harbour illustration. What got made is a blue mass and a yellow stroke, the colour of the water when the wind comes off the port, with the cranes left out on purpose.

It hangs in the Glenwood studio as a reminder that the illustration can be about the light and still be about the place.

The palette on a Friday

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

Red still on the brush, the rest of the week mixed into the edge of the palette. Shot in the studio because the palette itself does not survive the cleaning.

Illustration clients ask for the finished frame. This is the part they do not see: the colour that was mixed for a Durban afternoon and then wiped off.

Colour notes before a picture starts

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

Before a line is committed, the colour goes down as a note. This one was photographed while it was still wet, on the table in Glenwood, so there would be a record of the order the pigments went on.

The finished illustrations rarely keep this much of the mess. The note does. That is why it gets posted.

Ink studies from the Glenwood table

DDFS — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:08:29 +0000

The illustrator works in Glenwood, Durban. These are the sheets from one week: one wash, then a drier stroke through it, pressed flat under boards because the paper cockles in the humidity.

Nothing here is a finished commission. They are the studies that decide whether a picture is worth scaling up. The ones that hold are the ones with almost no drawing.