Revised Kirstenbosch

Thank you, thank you to all for your input on my painting of the kids at Kirstenbosch.  I really appreciated your input and took Celeste's advice about the orange wash as well as comments on the background.

So, far fewer bushes in the back and an orange glaze, this is the best pic I could get, so please excuse any glare.

Bushman of the Kalahari

I have mislaid a week of my life!

Not really, but that's what it feels like. I was sitting at the SASA Annual Exhibition at Kirstenbosch last week until Thursday, then Friday first thing, it was on the 'plane to Johannesburg for a friend's daughter's wedding. Only got back last night, so have done nothing with a brush for over a week!

This painting is of a Bushman, one of those incredible hunter gatherer people who are the original inhabitants of this country. They owned no land (they believe only God owns the land) and lived off it in much the same way the Aboriginal people of Australia and the Red Indians in America did.

Their ability to live in desert conditions is amazing and in this painting he is using his bow and arrow as a musical instrument.

The Bushmen, often referred to as the San or the generic term Khoisan, are the remnants of Africa's oldest cultural group, genetically the closest surviving people to the original Homo-Sapien core from which the Negro emerged. They are small in stature generally with light yellowish skin, which wrinkles very early in life. Despite the later massive expansion of the pastoral and agrarian tribal cultures, those Bushman groups that utilised environments that were unsuitable for farming, survived until fairly recently with a high level of genetic purity.

Winter at Velddrift

One of the aspects of painting that I still hesitate doing, is plein air painting. I need photo references. Sad, but true. Maybe one day I'll take all my oil painting paraphernalia and set up somewhere in the surrounding countryside. Until then, it's photo references!

This was taken by a friend who paints with our group every Friday. He is lucky enough to have a holiday house up the West Coast in a fishing area called Velddrift. His is one of 3 houses in the area and this is the view from his front 'garden'.

Winter in the Cape, and especially up the West Coast, has it's own bleek kind of beauty. A Winter rainfall area, everything seems wet and damp, but the water brings out the most glorious colours when the sun shines.

But wait! About 3 weeks ago, I did try a plein air piece. This was done from a friend's house in Tableview. She has the most magnificent view of the vlei, which is home to an incredible amount of birdlife, leading through to this panorama of Table Mountain. The day we were there, the clouds danced in and out and around the mountain, first hiding then revealing this beautiful mountain we live with every wonderful day. I don't think I've done it justice, but there it is, my plein air piece!