Market is no a place but a time

Stone Town is a city that changes according to time, in the morning before noon, there is market, a so in some streets and squares you will find people selling their products.


After walking close to the Market we stopped at a corner.

Stephanie was drawing an old guy, and when I finished my drawings I took some pictures with her camera.

She always attracts a crowd. Of course people are eager to comment.

The madona of the cell phone.

It was so much fun to go around sketching with Stephanie Ledoux.. we stopped at this street to draw the door but at the same time fascinated by the people seating on the side.

Although we couldn't communicate when people noticed us drawing they started to interact with us in non verbal ways.

 
This guy was definitely posing as he realized that we started drawing him. He stayed in that position for have an hour..

The little Nabil came to us to watch what we were doing, His mother join him later he hold him with one arm and in the other texted with the phone. I like to portrait this kind of contrast in Africa, Technology is there but people keep their traditions. To hide technology would be to romanticize reality, like these colonial tourist postcards, something that I don't want

Getting in lost in Stone Town

I tried to find my way back to the market following the route my guide showed me the day before. At the same time I was checking in a map to follow the names of the streets. Not map helps you there. Very soon I realized that the narrow allies in Stone Town were like rivers, with buildings between it course and the the end all them end in the big see that is the market. In the many ways I follow I always found something interesting so getting lost was all the time a pleasant experience.

I cut a window in the title page to show a glimpse of the next one. Stephanie was teaching me calligraphy,

There were many beautiful carved doors on the way..

A trick to draw people is to start drawing an square and start adding people as they jump inside the painting..

Soon kids came and started asking for portraits

like these two:

Meeting Stephanie Ledoux in Zanzibar

On the Second day Stephanie arrived. Stephanie Ledoux is a fantastic artist. Stephanie is also a great photographer and travels a lot. Specially to far and exotic places.
Check her blog: Stephanie-Ledoux.blogspot.com

Before she traveled she prepared an  old photo album with collages and color backgrounds to draw over later. She keeps collecting things in the streets to add to her sketchbooks. She does not draw chronological in her book, but rather choose a page appropriated to the motive.

We connected immediately, and soon we were wondering through the city and drawing together. I showed her the areas I already know. We didn't had a plan, so we moved at our own pace. It was wonderful how good we traveled together..being able to understand the other's need to stop and draw and most of the time encourage with the example the other to also do a drawing.

We encountered for example this fantastic scene: Two guys playing Bao. When I finished I started drawing her. Check Stephanie's post in her blog Stephanie-ledoux.blogspot  about this experience here.
There are also two other posts in her blog about our time in Zanzibar together here and here.