The Artery

08/08/2026

26/07/2026

There are 3 places still available in the Saturday morning group for “Drawing Between The Lines”, starting 1st August. Here is a link to a blog I wrote six years ago which describes something about what a drawing experience feels like. May it inspire you to sign up and experience something similar for yourself!

A couple of days ago, I met a kindred-spirit-kind-of-friend at Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, as the gates opened at 8 a.m. I hadn’t been for months and months, since B.C (before Covid-19), in fact. I felt I was entering the realm of a sleeping queendom. And there was also that feeling of returni...

17/07/2026

“When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, 'You mean they forget?' “

(Quote by Howard Ikemoto)

Sign up for “Drawing Between the Lines” an 8 week art process course at the Artery in Rondebosch. Practise drawing as meditation, drawing as playfulness, drawing as learnable skills and liberate yourself from self-limiting beliefs about your creativity in a gentle, safe and supportive environment.

10/07/2026

DRAWING AND DESIGN

“The French word for drawing is dessin. In Italian, it is disegno (where it also means "design"), while segnare means "to point, to indicate, or make a mark"-similar to the English signal, or assign. Thus drawing and assignment are two words sharing a common root. Drawing is the process by which visual ideas are given, or assigned, value. Joining one word to the other gives each greater force and purpose.
A similar pairing of drawing and design may suggest different outcomes and represent the same process of visualisation. Drawing implies a quest for meaning beyond project planning. One draws water from wells, blood from veins, and inspiration from visual experience.”

Extract from “The Visual Language of Drawing: Lessons on the Art of Seeing” by James L. McElhinney & the Instructors of The Art Students League of New York.

10/07/2026

If you learned how to write, you can learn how to draw!

Would you like to develop more confidence and skills in drawing, in a fun, non-judgmental space and to discover how the practice of drawing can become a meditation and a way of seeing the world with new eyes?

Drawing is like learning how to ride a bicycle -once you “get it” it’s with you for life; a creative outlet you can do anywhere using humble materials: the back on an envelope, a paper tablecloth using a ballpoint pen, a pencil, a toothpick dipped in coffee!

The Friday morning group is fully booked but there are still a few places available in the Saturday morning group. Contact me today to discuss the details.

09/06/2026

Learning how to draw is learning how to see. Learning how to see changes our perception of reality, improves our integration of experiences and creates meaning.
I offer clear and gentle guidance so that new neural pathways can be opened up through drawing, leading to a state of joyful self-confidence and creative expression.

Places are filling up already…
I’m available to answer any questions you might have about how I hold the space.
A gift to yourself…
Payment can be made in installments by arrangement.

Here are a few student testimonials:

“Gabriella is an extraordinary being. It’s such a privilege to benefit from her beautifully crafted courses. Her art lies in her ability to weave the breadth and depth of her knowledge into words, paired with multi-medium creative processes, all held in a carefully curated group that maintains a gentle culture of connection through sacred neutrality and courageously playful art-making.
Gabriella’s art courses are the ultimate gift to self!”
~Tamara

“This experience has been beyond anything I could ever have expected and my gratitude is immeasurable. Thank you Gabriela for holding us all so tenderly in your beautiful energy and wisdom.”
~ Bev

“Special thanks to you Gabriella. I now look at the world differently.”
~ Daphne

“Gabriella offers a rich entry point into the artwork and makes the process easily accessible. I come alive engaging in the art-making!”
~ Gillian

“I’ve come to gracious acceptance that I’m never going to competently articulate what you have done for me. "Thank You” just doesn’t cut it, but I need to start somewhere... So thank YOU ❤️”
~ Jodine

“I just wanted to let you know that the past 7.5 years with you have changed my life in unimaginable ways. Our work together is soul work and so powerful. Feeling super grateful right now. Thank you.”
~ Zann

25/03/2026

“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works." ~ Marc Chagall

“Heart Matters” is a new, 7 week, mixed media, art process course designed and facilitated with Love.
Listen to your Heart, be guided by its Wisdom. Contact me today to be part of a magical circle of authentic women exploring their creativity in a safely held, non-judgmental space.
Start from where you are: No previous art experience is needed.
The Artery studio is set in a tranquil garden in Rondebosch. ❤️

🖼️ Marc Chagall, ‘Pour Vava' au coeur rouge, 1984

07/03/2026

Places are filling up already…
I’m available to answer any questions you might have about how I hold the space.
A gift to yourself…
Payment can be made in installments by arrangement.

Here are a few student testimonials:

“Gabriella is an extraordinary being. It’s such a privilege to benefit from her beautifully crafted courses. Her art lies in her ability to weave the breadth and depth of her knowledge into words, paired with multi-medium creative processes, all held in a carefully curated group that maintains a gentle culture of connection through sacred neutrality and courageously playful art-making.
Gabriella’s art courses are the ultimate gift to self!”
~Tamara

“This experience has been beyond anything I could ever have expected and my gratitude is immeasurable. Thank you Gabriela for holding us all so tenderly in your beautiful energy and wisdom.”
~ Bev

“Special thanks to you Gabriella. I now look at the world differently.”
~ Daphne

“Gabriella offers a rich entry point into the artwork and makes the process easily accessible. I come alive engaging in the art-making!”
~ Gillian

“I’ve come to gracious acceptance that I’m never going to competently articulate what you have done for me. "Thank You” just doesn’t cut it, but I need to start somewhere... So thank YOU ❤️”
~ Jodine

“I just wanted to let you know that the past 7.5 years with you have changed my life in unimaginable ways. Our work together is soul work and so powerful. Feeling super grateful right now. Thank you.”
~ Zann

23/02/2026

Those who practise, the artists, share their insights, coming out an embodied experience, about the creative process.

27/01/2026

A drawing capturing the essential spirit as well as the fading corporeality of an elderly person. 🤍

Munch’s Head of an Old Woman is not a portrait of likeness, but a portrait of fading presence — a face dissolving into memory and mortality.

In Head of an Old Woman, Edvard Munch strips portraiture down to its most fragile essence. There is no theatrical setting, no decorative context, no attempt at conventional realism. Instead, the face appears almost as a ghostly emergence — as though it has been summoned from silence rather than painted from life. Munch is not concerned with surface detail; he is concerned with what remains when life begins to recede.

The drawing feels unfinished in the traditional sense, yet it is complete in emotional terms. The features are soft, barely anchored, hovering between visibility and disappearance. The eyes — pale, unfocused, yet deeply human — become the centre of gravity, suggesting not vitality but endurance. The old woman’s face seems less a fixed identity than a fleeting state: age as atmosphere, not anatomy.

Munch’s handling of tone is crucial here. The shadow across one side of the face is not simply a device of light; it feels symbolic, like the encroachment of time itself. The mouth is quiet, almost erased, as though speech has become unnecessary. What remains is presence — diminished, but profound.

This is one of Munch’s most modern gestures: the portrait as psychological trace rather than physical description. He captures the vulnerability of ageing not through harshness, but through delicacy, through the sense that the sitter is already drifting into absence. The paper becomes a space of memory, where form is unstable and humanity is painfully tender.

Ultimately, Head of an Old Woman is less about an individual sitter than about the universal condition of mortality. It is Munch at his most restrained and most devastating — reminding us that the human face is not only something we see, but something that, inevitably, fades.