To what lengths will you go when you're bored?!

“I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom!”
^{Thomas Carlyle, Scottish Historian and Essayist, leading figure in the Victorian era. 1795-1881}

Done in my Moleskine 200gsm Watercolour sketch-book

It’s amazing what you’ll do when inspiration fails to materialise. I just couldn’t think of anything to sketch – a landscape? No, boring! Some animals? No, boring! I was at my wit’s end, trying to come up with something, so I decided to really challenge myself and do something I really hate – still life!

I looked around the kitchen and grabbed a couple of things lying around and just started sketching. Before long I was totally immersed in capturing the see-throughness of the plastic wrap and the vibrant colours on hubby’s favourite mug – even my hake lying close-by got roped in!

Moving out of my comfort zone and doing something new made me realise that we so easily become entrenched in the ‘known’, that excitement and passion can easily ebb away and leave us feeling drained.
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“Often what we call procrastination, a lack of inspiration or boredom, is really just being trapped in the shell of our own comfort zone. Our comfort zone offers a safe haven, a trusted beaten path for us to follow. However the comfort zone can easily become, over time, our liability zone!”
<sup>- Dr. Sharon House – Creativity for Life

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No rain yet...

Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams. 

- Ashley Smith 

 Ink sketch and colour wash of a scene in Magaliesburg in my Moleskine Nature sketchbook

It's the first of October, heading for mid-summer here in South Africa and we've had no rain yet. Normally we have the winds in August clearing up old growth and our first spring rains early in September, but the wind has been blowing right through September, seemingly blowing the clouds back to whence they came from.

I'm having to water my garden every day, we've had some very high temperatures, but nothing seems to give life like even just a couple of millimetres of rain...

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A winter's morn

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm 

A winter's morning at a dam in Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa) 

It was still ash-grey on a Sunday morning, but winter was awake already. She was whispering everywhere. She was shaking shaking everything in her path. She seeped through the gaps around the doors and windows. She crawled down the walls and flooded the room with her ice-cold breath. She crept into my bed. Then woke me up and penetrated my duvet. Surrounded by her, I found myself shrinking like an earthworm. I then had to compromise my bed. She enjoyed taking possession. I was trying to sleep with my knees squashed to my head and my arms around my ankles. I was shaking when I felt her presence. I got up and closed the windows. She were trapped, inside. 

- Unknown

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No cold can touch me

When you know who you are; when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will; no cold can touch your heart; no deluge can dampen your purpose. You know that you are alive. 

- Chief Seattle

W&N watercolour on DalerRowney 300gsm 

The hills of Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa) are dressed in their winter finery, cold shadows falling across the landscape as the sun tries to warm the valleys below. We've had some REALLY freezing weather, but today it's warming up again. 

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I am the Earth

W&N watercolour on smooth cardboard - no preliminary sketching 

A rocky outcrop on the way to Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa) - I have walked to the top of this little hillock just to have a look at all the rocks, makes one wonder what forces of Mother Nature were at work to have scattered them here....

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Africa's Wonder

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!



“Let a Person Walk Alone With Few Wishes, Committing No Wrong, Like an Elephant in the Forest.”

Africa’s wild animals are a constant source of inspiration and for me elephants symbolise Strength, Solitude, sense of loyalty to the family and Intelligence. Looking into the eye of an elephant, one sees Wisdom beyond our understanding.

I sketched this young elephant on a visit to the Elephant Sanctuary Hartebeespoort Dam where they provide a “halfway house” for young African elephants in need of a temporary home.

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm 16” x 12”

Standing out in the crowd

Sometimes I think we may feel that we have to do the big things in life to stand out from the crowd, but I think all you have to do is be yourself.... like this little daisy....

Watercolour on Visual 200gsm watercolour paper done on a textured back-ground by "GHOSTBONES"

I've been experimenting with some textures lately and for this one I printed the texture on watercolour paper first and then painted over it. I had just read an article a few days ago on 'standing out in the crowd', and as the painting looked a bit bland and mono-tone, the little daisy came to mind.

Daisy in Acrylic

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


Acrylic on Visual 200gsm watercolour paper - 8" x 12"

The Daisy follows soft the Sun
And when his golden walk is done
Sits shyly at his feet
He, waking – finds the flower there
Wherefore, Marauder, art thou here?
Because, Sir, love is sweet!
We are the Flower, Thou the Sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline
We nearer steal to Thee!
Enamoured of the parting West
The peace – the flight – the Amethyst
Night’s possibility!
- Emily Dickinson

One of my rare acrylics - as happens often, this one was done over another acrylic which I decided I don't like! But I've also found a blessing in that, because all the paint on top of one another provides a wonderful texture!

From my portfolios of "Flowers":http://www.redbubble.com/people/mareeclarkson/collections/4602-flowers-1 and "Acrylic Paintings":http://www.redbubble.com/people/mareeclarkson/collections/4333-acrylic-paintings

Winter Setting in

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”
- Anton Chekhov

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

Although the lawn in my garden is still thick and green from all the rain we've had, the veld and roadside is starting to show the effects of Winter - all the Cosmos is gone and the tall thatching grass is yellow and dry, just waiting for the first careless cigarette to be flicked out of a car window - this Black Wattle tree still hadn't recovered from the ravages of last year's fires and got a second dose when the property owner did his fire-break this week. Pity, but fire-breaks are a necessary evil if we are going to be protecting our properties from these, sometimes dangerous, fires.

From my portfolio of Landscapes on redBubble

The Poinsettia and the Daisies

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!

Watercolour and acrylic on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper 

- 12" x 8"

Did you know that the poinsettia has a special day all its own? By an Act of Congress, in the U.S., December 12 was set aside as National Poinsettia Day. The date marks the death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, who is credited with introducing the native Mexican plant to the United States. The purpose of the day is to enjoy the beauty of this popular holiday plant.
So, be sure to give someone you love a poinsettia on December 12, National Poinsettia Day!

The star-shaped poinsettia has become one of the best known floral symbols of the Christmas season and is considered the most popular potted plant during that time of year.

They were introduced to the United States over 125 years ago when they were brought here in 1828 by America's first ambassador to Mexico, Dr. Joel Poinsett. Native to Mexico, the “Flor de Noche Buena” - flower of the Holy Night, was thought by many eighteenth century Mexicans to be symbolic of the Star of Bethlehem

A charming story is told of Pepita, a poor Mexican girl who had no gift to present the Christ Child at Christmas Eve Services. As Pepita walked slowly to the chapel with her cousin Pedro, her heart was filled with sadness rather than joy.

"I am sure, Pepita, that even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes," said Pedro consolingly.

Not knowing what else to do, Pepita knelt by the roadside and gathered a handful of common weeds, fashioning them into a small bouquet. Looking at the scraggly bunch of weeds, she felt more saddened and embarrassed than ever by the humbleness of her offering. She fought back a tear as she entered the small village chapel.

As she approached the alter, she remembered Pedro's kind words: "Even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes." She felt her spirit lift as she knelt to lay the bouquet at the foot of the nativity scene.

Suddenly, the bouquet of weeds burst into blooms of brilliant red, and all who saw them were certain that they had witnessed a Christmas miracle right before their eyes.
From that day on, the bright red flowers were known as the Flores de Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night, for they bloomed each year during the Christmas season. Today, the common name for this plant is the poinsettia!

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From my portfolio of Flowers on RedBubble

Winter moving in

Brew me a cup for a winter's night.
For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;
Spice it with love and stir it with care,
And I'll toast our bright eyes,
my sweetheart fair.
~Minna Thomas Antrim


Acrylics on canvas panel 12" x 9"

I've been experimenting a bit more with Acrylics these days, trying to break away from that "watercolour" look I'm still getting with my acrylics, and as the old adage goes, "A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!"

South Africa is famous for its sunshine. It's a relatively dry country, with an average annual rainfall of about 464mm (compared to a world average of about 860mm). While the Western Cape gets most of its rainfall in winter, the rest of the country is generally a summer-rainfall region.

The Western Cape gets most of its rain in winter, with quite a few days of cloudy, rainy weather. However, these are always interspersed with wonderful days to rival the best of a British summer. The high mountains of the Cape and the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal usually get snow in winter.

Winter in South Africa (May to July) is characterised in the higher-lying areas of the interior plateau by dry, sunny, crisp days and cold nights. So it's a good idea to bring warm clothes.
The hot, humid KwaZulu-Natal coast, as well as the Lowveld (lower-lying areas) of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, offer fantastic winter weather with sunny, warmish days and virtually no wind or rain.

A subtropical location, moderated by ocean on three sides of the country and the altitude of the interior plateau, account for the warm temperate conditions so typical of South Africa - and so popular with its foreign visitors.

At the same time, temperatures in South Africa tend to be lower than in other countries at similar latitudes - such as Australia - due mainly to greater elevation above sea level.

On the interior plateau the altitude - Johannesburg lies at 1 694 meters - keeps the average summer temperatures below 30 degrees Celsius. In winter, for the same reason, night-time temperatures can drop to freezing point, in some places lower.

South Africa's coastal regions are therefore warmest in winter. There is, however, a striking contrast between temperatures on the country's east and west coasts, due respectively to the warm Agulhas and cold Benguela Currents that sweep the coastlines.

Being in the southern hemisphere, our seasons stand in opposition to those of Europe and North America, so, yes - we spend Christmas on the beach!
From South Africa Travel Info

From my portfolios of Landscapes with Water and Acrylic Paintings on RedBubble

Rampage of Appreciation

Watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm sketchbook

Appreciate your friends
and family
and hold them near.
NOW

Compliment yourself
on the day’s achievements
no matter how big or few they are.

Appreciate the stamina of your body.
And who you are.

Turn toward
your perfect life.
It is the best feeling.

Go on a rampage of appreciation.

Relax and breathe into appreciation
of what you shared.
No relationship is ever done.
It’s all eternal.
- Maree Clarkson

Daisies Postcard 2

I'm a pretty little thing,
Always coming with the spring;
In the meadows green I'm found,
Peeping just above the ground,
And my stalk is cover'd flat
With a white and yellow hat.


Little Mary, when you pass
Lightly o'er the tender grass,
Skip about, but do not tread
On my bright but lowly head,
For I always seem to say,
"Surely winter's gone away."
- Ann Taylor, "The Field Daisy"

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!

"Daisies Postcard" - Watercolour on handwritten background text on Visual 200gsm - 12" x 10"

Every Spring, the daisies in my garden spring up with such exuberance and last spring I just had to paint some of them!

I'm exploring doing some watercolours on back-grounds with handwriting on them (this one from Boccacino), and find it gives some lovely soft effects. First I print out the texture on watercolour paper and then add the sketches and watercolours.

The Magical process

"Painting is a magical process that I like, where you conjure something out of nothing; you get a little idea that leads you through ... You can go into a trance while you're doing it, so it's a nice contrast to real life."
- Paul McCartney

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


Watercolour on Arches 300gsm

Stuck indoors again, lots of rain, so no field sketching at the moment! This is one of the 6 paintings I did while it poured outside and being without electricity (and therefore internet as well!) - having to boil water for coffee on the little gas burner and sitting close to the window (for light). Did this from my imagination, taking inspiration from the blue, wet hues outside, the bright green of all the grass and all the muddy patches everywhere.

A new start

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
- Maria Robinson

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


"A new start" - Watercolour on Visual 140gsm 13.5" x 10" - Maree©

Looking at this picture, one could either perceive a ruin and the sad end of something or a new start of a wonderful experience. This one is a family building their new home, preparing for a new adventure at the foothills of the Magaliesberg Mountains.

This was done from a photograph I took on our last trip to Hartebeespoort Dam.

The Journey

“I haven't a clue as to how my story will end. But that's all right. When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, you don't conclude the road has vanished. And how else could we discover the stars?”

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


Magaliesburg Farm Road - watercolour in Moleskine watercolour sketchbook
8.5" x 5" - Maree©

A farm road in our area passing through Spring Farm, which we often use as a short-cut to get to Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa). I did a quick ink sketch in my Moleskine Watercolour Sketch-book and completed the colour when we got home.

Road through Noupoort

"A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside!"
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan


"Road through Noupoort" - watercolour in Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook 8" x 5.5"

On the way to a friend's farm in Noupoort a few weeks ago, just the other side of Magaliesburg (South Africa), I stopped to do a quick sketch of the road disappearing past a hillock and did the colour over lunch, some chatting and a glass of wine. I think it got a bit over-worked, I couldn't put down my pen while chatting!

Magaliesberg Mountains 4

"Magaliesburg Mountains 4" - Watercolour on X-pressit Aqua 300gsm

- 12" x 8" - Maree©

“The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain -- he is inspired by it. The persistent winner is not discouraged by a problem -- he is challenged by it. Mountains are created to be conquered; adversities are designed to be defeated; problems are sent to be solved. It is better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills.”
- William Arthur Ward

This 30 000-hectare mountain preserve in the North-West Province of South Africa is almost entirely the property of agricultural, mining or industrial landowners. But legislation ensures that no more quarries, factories or unacceptable developments can take place that would threaten the integrity of the natural area. There is a fragile and secret world in the kloofs of the Magaliesberg, with places where you can see vultures soaring on updrafts, swim in clear mountain pools - and perhaps even catch sight of a pangolin, a brown hyena or a leopard.

For this wet-on-wet scene of the mountain, after wetting the paper, I sketched the main outlines of my scene using my Rigger and Cerulean Blue, a "trick" I picked up at my watercolour workshop in April this year. I'm sure many of you use this technique, but I've always been somewhat of a sketchy person, using my pencil, going into great detail with a lot of erasing happening. It's only been the past couple of months since I started practicing painting with no sketching beforehand that I feel confident enough to consider doing this.

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Awe-inspiring Mountain

“A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?”
- Kahlil Gibran

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!

"Magaliesberg Mountains 3" - watercolour on Ashrad 300gsm w/colour paper - 8" x 6" - Maree©

The Magaliesberg is the closest thing to a wilderness in Gauteng (South Africa) ... to watch the sheer south-facing slopes from eagle height and to see trees, cows and cars like toys in the patchwork playground of green-brown fields below, is a sheer joy.

I sketched this scene just a few kilometers outside Magaliesburg, as these majestic mountains start rising, eventually reaching their full height of 1741m above sea level.

"The village of Magaliesburg lies just below the southern range of the Magaliesberg Mountains. The roads and rivers take similar paths, breaking though the steep ridges of the mountains in a few places, only to traverse much of the land along the valleys on either side of the two mountain ridges. This small village lies at the heart of a beautiful region of mountains, valleys, rivers and indigenous woodland - home to a variety of birds.

The Magaliesberg mountain range lies in between the highveld savannah of the Witwatersrand and the African bushveld, stretching roughly from past Rustenburg in the west, past Pretoria to Bronkhorstspruit in the east. This mountain range is almost 100 times older than Everest with interesting geology, archaeology, fauna and flora.

The area was also the site of battles during the Boer War, such as:

• Battle of Nooitgedacht: Monument to one of the historic battles between the Boer and English, at the height of the Boer War.
• Old English Block House: Loosely packed stone wall construction built by the English in 1902 towards the end of the Boer War. To view by appointment only.

The Magaliesberg has the most intriguing and longest session of history, as man would have experienced, than anywhere else on earth. The reason for this is the discovery of the remains of the earliest species of primitive man know today, in and around the Sterkfontein Caves, about 20 minutes drive from Magaliesburg."

Read more at http://www.mogalecity.gov.za/municipality/magaliesburg.stm

Magaliesberg Mountains 1

“I've learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.”
- Unknown

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


"Magaliesberg Mountains 1" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 15" x 11" - Maree©

For one of the workshops I attended with Angela Eidelman in March this year, we had to stretch and prepare our paper at home beforehand and that week's practice was wet-in-wet again. We had to draw the outlines of the scene we were going to paint, from pictures Angela supplied, with Cerulean blue and then, paint it wet-on-wet, keeping in mind our composition, light source, focal point, etc., with Angela constantly peeping over our shoulders, giving encouragement and correction.

This is a scene of part of the Magaliesberg mountains, which runs for more than 100 kilometers from Rustenburg to beyond Pretoria. I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise!