Category: Gallery

Nguni Study Revisited

Nguni Cameo. Watercolour 500 x 350 mm.

After the big oil that I painted and sold in 2009, I have not painted Nguni’s again. So, a recent Nguni inquiry inspired me to compose another BIG canvas. I have a photo taken many years ago, between Pofadder and Pella, of a cattle herder with his herd. This is my inspiration for the new painting. However there are many logistical considerations with this painting as the entire herd of cattle are walking forward in a tight group, and most of my Nguni photographs are not suitable. These two paintings below were studies made of the few I do have, and now, I must go and visit Nguni farmers in the district to glean more photographic reference. It is a mighty challenge but an enjoyable one all the same. The painting at the top, is just a small unrelated pair of Nguni that caught my attention.

Nguni study 1. Watercolour 380 x 270 mm.

Nguni Study 2. Watercolour. 380 x 270 mm

28 Sep 2010
Spring has sprung on Silvermere.

Sweet Violets. Watercolour. 350 x 250 mm

Looking at these pictures you could be anywhere in the world when spring arrives. I am sure most of you recognize the beautiful heralds of the season; the daffodils, the violets and the willow! But this is the karoo, and though the rains have yet to arrive and set the veld alive with colour, we celebrate the newness of the season in our garden as it comes to life with joy. God is good and our lives are made new each day by His wondrous Grace!

Daffodils. 250 x 350 mm watercolour

Willow, Willow o’er the pond,

Water lilies and draping frond;

Darting fish and rushes grow,

Brushed by the whispering winds that blow.

But times do change, and the past it flees,

Our pond is gone, but not the trees;

The birds will come and nest again,

The winds will blow and then the rain.

The Willows stand and grass will run,

Spring will go and summer come!

( My willow poem)

Draping Willow. Watercolour sketch. 210 x 290 mm.

5 Sep 2010
The Feathered Fruit-eaters in our Garden

Acacia Pied Barbet, Redeyed Bulbul & Cape White-eyes. Watercolour.325 x 505mm.

Some time ago I posted a blog featuring the seed-eaters under the title; ‘Feeding the Birds’. I really love the birds, so I continue to photograph them in and around our garden. Those that come to the bird table outside my studio window are a wonderful and colourful distraction. We feed them seeds and crushed maize, bread crusts, grated cheese, dry cooked maize porridge called, ‘Umphokoqo’, and fruit. The oranges have to be attached with wire to keep them from falling onto the ground below.

Crested Barbet. Watercolour & Gouache 470 x 285 mm.

As it is the fruit-salad season at the moment, with oranges and paw-paws in abundance, I have kept the fruit–eating birds happy with all the fruit-skins that they enjoy. The first birds that come for them include; the Crested and Pied Barbets, the Mousebirds, The Red-eyed Bulbuls and many more. The Crested Barbet is so bright and cheerful while all around winter hues still drape the garden in sombre tones of ochre and grey, and the seed-eating weavers have yet to clothe themselves in their bright breeding plumage of red and yellow. Therefore I decided to make a small study of some of these fruit-eaters. The bright and dainty Cape White-eyes are my favourites, so I chose two compositions with them.

Mousebirds with Oranges. Watercolour. 385 x 265 mm.

Cape White-eyes on the Grapevine. Watercolour & Gouache. 290 x 420 mm.

17 Aug 2010
Old Overgrown Shed

Old Overgrown Shed. Watercolour & gouache. 410 x 295 mm.

7 Aug 2010
Peaceful Early Morning

Peaceful Early Morning. watercolour. 250 x 700 mm.

7 Aug 2010
Sheep May Safely Graze

Today I finished two paintings that brought to mind the beautiful Bach melody, ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ , from his Cantata 208.

'Rain clouds over Bethulie.' Oil on canvas. 800 x 630 mm.

If you haven’t heard it or can’t remember it, you will find many lovely versions on YouTube.

Our sheep here on Silvermere do not graze safely, unfortunately. Predators like jackals and lynx are a constant threat and an ever increasing problem that has driven many neighbouring farmers to change over to cattle ranching instead.

'A Shady Tree on a Hot Day.' Watercolour on Pastel Paper. 290 x 475 mm.

How comforting it is for us to know that we have an all-powerful Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ, who cares for us. He overcame Satan and rescued us when He died on the Cross, and rose again for our sake. No matter how we are tested and challenged, He is our everlasting Saviour and Protector;

11 “For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search and find my sheep. 12 I will be like a shepherd looking for his scattered flock. I will find my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day. 13 I will bring them back home to their own land of Israel from among the peoples and nations. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel and by the rivers and in all the places where people live. 14 Yes, I will give them good pastureland on the high hills of Israel. There they will lie down in pleasant places and feed in the lush pastures of the hills. 15 I myself will tend my sheep and give them a place to lie down in peace, says the Sovereign LORD. 16 I will search for my lost ones who strayed away, and I will bring them safely home again. I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak. But I will destroy those who are fat and powerful. I will feed them, yes—feed them justice!”

-Ezekiel v 11–16. (NLT)

12 Apr 2010
Gardens of Delight at the Bedford Festival

In October we visited the Bedford Garden Festival on our way to and from Port Elizabeth. We explored the delights of 7 colourful gardens, and took lots of photographs along the way. The dry conditions plaguing the Eastern Cape, had not affected these exquisite gardens, and bore testament to the tenacity of their gardeners. The heat did not deter the car loads of visitors, nor did it bother us. Every garden was a stunning spectacle and a treat for the senses. I hope my sketches can convey in some small way, the treasures that we found at every garden we visited. We started with Chestnut Grove and moved on to Cavers and Kelvinside. Then we came back through Bedford to Maastrom and finally Albertvale. On our return trip we visited Fairholt and Eildon. The six sketches of this series were the views that inspired me the most, but there were many more that I’d still love to paint in the future; and as Henry Miller once said, “What the painter sees, he is duty bound to share”

All the following paintings are pen & wash. Watercolour on Saunders Waterford 300g. size: 350 x 260 mm.

Kelvinside and Albertvale's garden room

(more…)

3 Dec 2009
The First Study of our Silvermere Meerkat Family

Meerkat Family, Watercolour & Gouache on Grey Canson Pastel paper. 620 x 430 mm.

‘Meerkat Manor’ on Animal Planet has been my favourite Soap Opera on TV for as long as the series has been running. So you can imagine how delighted I was when our own nomadic family of Meerkats set up home ( for a short while) behind our farm shed. There is a small broken window at the back of the shed, just big enough for my camera lens. I could sit there on the Lucerne bales, with my camera positioned through the hole in the window, and the meerkats were totally oblivious to my presence. So I spent many a happy hour photographing the antics and dramas of our own little meerkat family. It was very entertaining and I am delighted with the good photos I was able to take. There hasn’t been much of an opportunity to really explore them with my paints, but since the pressure of the exhibition is over, I have done a few paintings and sketches. Needless to say many more will follow, but here are the first ones: (more…)

4 Oct 2009
G.K.Chesterton and the Donkey

Donkey. watercolour. 225 x 160 mm

To return to that marvellous word, ‘serendipity’; the Warthog post and the Roses post were inadvertently linked when the warthogs tried to get into my rose garden, which you may recall. This time, the last post is linked to this one by this quote from one of my favourite authors, G.K.Chesterton :

“Can the Lion lie down with the Lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted: that is the miracle she achieved.”

But the reason I chose Chesterton for this post was a favourite poem I remember from my youth, about the Donkey: (more…)

23 Sep 2009
The Lion, the Lamb, and the Exhibition.

The Exhibition in Port Elizabeth was our first in almost 2 years. It was a mere 3 days but the Lord blessed us with a successful show, and a trouble-free trip to PE and back with our overloaded old trailer. Also we have so many family and friends, new and old, to be thankful to for making it a wonderful weekend. Our son, John, also came from Johannesburg, to help us with the Exhibition. As we hadn’t Exhibited in PE since March 2006, it was wonderful to have so many of our old friends and patrons coming to visit us.

For those who haven’t seen our Exhibitions before, you may like to see the set of photos that we took, and for those that were there, thank you for making it so memorable!

John drawing. PE,Walmer Park Exhibition ’09

Card stand and tables. PE,Walmer Park Exhibition

4 corner rooms & 4 entrances made up the exhibition. Tables in the centre.

View from the outside of the display, Centre Court, Walmer Park.

John (husband) at one of the entrances,& the big Nguni painting that sold on the last day.

Another outer corner view. Walmer Park Exhibition Sep ’09

Travelling home ! 7 Sep ’09

After the painting of the roses in the last blog-post, there was little time to paint much before the big framing operation. John framed 22 new paintings for the Exhibition. However I did manage a couple of quick paintings,.. (more…)

8 Sep 2009
‘Tails Up’ & The Silvermere Warthogs

This post is about optimism and waiting on God’s perfect timing. The Israelites had to wait 40 years to enter the Promised Land, and I have had to wait many years, not so many by comparison , to capture on camera, warthogs running with their tails up. A friend once asked for a painting of warthogs running with their tails up, and I have failed to find any such suitable photographs. I do not like to paint from guesswork, being rather particular about anatomical accuracy. But ever since a family of warthogs have settled on Silvermere my chances have increased dramatically. Well, the wait has finally paid off. However as often happens, one seldom has the camera when sighting the warthogs. Earlier this year though, John Oliver(with camera) and his Dad were walking at Excelsior, the top part of our farm; when they saw the warthogs, and managed to capture them running off. These action photos though blurred, were then enhanced slightly thanks to Photoshop, and these two sketches were the result.

Warthogs. (560 x 250 mm. Pencil and wash sketch, on unstretched watercolour paper.)

Warthogs.(560 x 250 mm. Pen and wash sketch, on unstretched watercolour paper.)

These sketches sparked my interest and two more paintings followed. (more…)

16 Aug 2009
Travel Notebook & High Speed Sketching.

To paint… to travel… to combine the two… is to celebrate life. Jack R. Brouwer

“A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.” — Moslih Eddin Saadi

When travelling the long distances across South Africa, it is advisable, as a passenger, to have an entertaining pastime. For some reading, napping or listening to the radio helps while-away the hours. For me the most appealing options are; photographing the passing landscape or sketching it, depending on whether it is a small country road or a main highway. The highway is usually smooth and therefore I choose to sketch, while the small roads are too uneven for painting, so I photograph interesting scenery as we speed past.

Occasionally we have to turn around and return for some better shots of particularly inspiring scenes. On this last trip to Johannesburg last week; we took an alternative route up and therefore found several reasons to turn around: a suburban dam beside the gold mining town of Odendaalsrus with hundreds of feeding flamingoes; a little donkey cart loaded with passengers, on the road from Klerksdorp to Ventersdorp; a colourful cottage with an old grandmother and a toddler sunning themselves on the front steps; and a gravel driveway with some lovely old trees.

On our return from this particular trip to Johannesburg to visit our son, John; I realized that I was missing some interesting scenes as we sped by at 120 kms an hour on the main freeway. Usually much of the sketch is completed from memory, when it has passed us by at high speed, but I decided to photograph the good scenes, and finish the sketch from the viewer on my camera. This has made it possible to include more detail than would be possible from memory alone. (more…)

11 Aug 2009