Even though I have been keeping journals always, I have started using small ones. One is in my handbag for on-the-road, and one is for short entries, when time is limited. Here is a selection from October. It is great fun keeping these, with some small sketches and a few quotes or notes from the day. I used the Paperblank journal
In April 2017 John and I travelled across the karoo to the west coast of South Africa, to Lambert’s Bay. Over the years we have been to different parts of the East coast, but never the West coast. So it was wonderful to experience the wild wild sea of the west coast for the first time. It is such a different coastal town with extraordinary bird life and breathtaking sunsets every evening. Our only disappointment was the lack of fresh fish in the restaurants. Perhaps all those seabirds have eaten them all? These are the sketches that I did while we were there and later in the May challenge.
Soon after the Shearing shed painting, I had this order for two farm scenes, from the Eastern Cape beyond Cradock.
The EDM, mentioned in the last post, came to an end halfway through May due to this big commission. It took several weeks to complete, but it seems that the client was happy with the depiction of his shearing shed.
For the last two years I have managed to take up the EDM, The Every Day in May Challenge. It has been quite enjoyable if rather time consuming, and difficult to fit in on busy days. However, this year, I had an important big commission to start, so only completed half of the daily painting challenge. So here are the 15 paintings, it ended with the very personal sketch of my husband, John and his Grand daughter, Chloë, who share a 15th May Birthday. In April we travelled to Lambert’s Bay so several of these are inspired by scenery on that trip. The paintings appear in order of the days, from the first picture of the ewe and lamb, painted on the 1st May up till the last one, the portrait of Grandpa and Grand-daughter, on the 15th May.
