Summer at last!

“See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... we need silence to be able to touch souls.”
- Mother Teresa

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

Watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm sketching paper - 12" x 8"

Summer at last on our Smallholding in Tarlton, South Africa! Remnants of Winter are still visible, but we've had our first summer rains and the Blue gums (Eucalyptus) are looking spectacular. They truly did this metamorphosis in complete silence - the one minute they were cold and spares-looking and the next they're dressed in their finest summer finery, offering food and protection for the birds once more.

For the white parts of the trunks, I did a few strokes with a candle. I used the ordinary Price's candles (the cheapies in the blue wrapping), but you can also use white birthday cake candles, which actually work very well seeing as they are smaller.

Spring returning

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm Watercolour Sketch-book - 8" x 5"

Some blue gum trees (Eucalyptus) at the bottom of our smallholding (Gauteng, South Africa) - everything is already turning green, but some trees are still showing signs of the veld fires that raged through here just a couple of days ago. These trees provide me with endless hours of sketching pleasure - together, in pairs, singly - and each tree looks different when seen from its other side.

Die Hard!

“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you dies each year when the leaves fall from the trees and their branches are bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.”
- Ernest Hemingway

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


Watercolour in Moleskine Watercolour sketch-book - 8" x 5"

These blue gum trees (Eucalyptus) on our smallholding (Tarlton, South Africa) are real die hards! They have withstood this past Winter's fire ravages and are already sprouting new young leaves and producing new bark under the old burnt, peeling bark. These trees will never cease to amaze me - I've even seen one that, after being struck by lightning and split down the middle, the one side continued growing, even producing new branches!

Trees and singing hills

“May brooks and trees and singing hills join in the chorus too,
and every gentle wind that blows send happiness to you.”
- Irish Blessing

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


Watercolour in Moleskine watercolour sketchbook - 8" x 5" - Maree©

A scene a couple of kilometers from where I live - a gravel road through Tarlton (South Africa) on the way to Randfontein. It's a short-cut we often take past all the veggie and flower farms, the rubbish dump where all the Seagulls (600km from the coast!) gather and where tall Blue gum trees flank the road. Here you will find many old farmsteads dating back to the 1800's and early 1900's, but unfortunately most of these have fallen into disrepair and neglect and are more and more making way for more modern and comfortable homes.

There is also a vlei (marsh) area here that extends for many kilometers all the way to Tarlton and the hills fairly sing with the sound of birds and waterfowl. I presume this was the original feed for the Tarlton Dam, which is now empty, broken and no longer in existence, although the water still flows down the course during heavy periods of rain.

Thinking Big!

“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”
- Ayn Rand


"Rain in the gum forest" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 20" x 39" - Maree©

This is my first foray into BIG! A familiar subject, trees... There's something so scary and intimidating about a huge, pristine white piece of paper staring at you - putting that first splash of colour feels almost like sacrilege, like I'm defacing something pure and wonderful. But as the colour started to take over, I confidently worked faster, thinking about my own advice on fear - what's the worst that can happen?

Do I fear wasting the paints? What would happen if I did? I’d get more. I’d move on. I’d live.

Do I fear spoiling the paper? What would happen if I did? I’d crumple it up and throw it away. I'd get some more. I’d live.

And so I bravely worked with big, bigger than what I'm used to anyway, brush strokes, finally seeing it all come together. Whew!

I did a practice sketch of these trees on our smallholding, shortly after a downpour, and did the painting from that. I just could not see myself out in the bush with the easel and this big piece of paper!

Gum Forest 7

Just think of the trees: they let the birds perch and fly, with no intention to

call them when they come and no longing for their return when they fly away.

If people's hearts can be like the trees, they will not be off the Way.

- Langya

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

"Gum Forest 7" watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree© (no sketching)

Size : 7.5" x 5.5"

(This Series is for sale on my SALES BLOG)

The seventh in the Gum Forest series of 8 where I've been experimenting with not doing any sketches before painting, just putting colour directly onto the paper and seeing what develops. As I put in the preliminary washes, I was envisaging the closeness of the trees in our Blue gum forest and left a lot more clear paper before starting on the next colour phase.

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Blue Gum Forest on 84

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
- Robert Louis Stevenson



This Blue Gum forest on our smallholding is just in the process of recovering from winter and some heavy veld fires - most of the dead leaves are gone and some of the trees are still black from being burnt, but some green grass is starting to peep through. It provides me with endless hours of enjoyment walking through the trees, watching the birds and sketching.

Sketching in soft-cover books

Blue gum tree in soft-cover book

I'm feeling a bit distracted these days - I get like that when I've got a lot on my plate - besides sketching daily, doing larger paintings once or twice a week and my Private Daily Journal - I've also started an on-line art class with Cathy (Kate) Johnson on "Keeping an Artists' Journal" and I'm also participating in a sketch-book exchange between South Africa and Australia, which you can read about on Artists' Circle.

To centre my thoughts and ground my energy a bit, I took and old soft-cover book with me to record little sketches of grasses, weeds and indigenous flowers on our property. Before I started on the grasses, I couldn't resist doing a quick sketch of this Blue gum tree - I'll use the sketches that I do in these soft-covers as reference for larger paintings at a later stage.

Blue Gums & Black Wattles

"I am good enough, perfect in my own special way."
A daily Affirmation

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


"Blue Gums and Black Wattle Trees" Acrylic on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper - Maree©

In this painting I experimented with acrylics on a good, thick Bockingford watercolour paper and decided I just LOVE how the acrylics feel on the paper. It's amazing! I think I'm falling more and more in love with this versatile medium.

These trees are on our smallholding and although we are trying to get rid of all the Black Wattles, they spring up faster than you try to eradicate them. The problem is that they produce a huge amount of seeds, which can grow in the most arid and infertile of soils. Even worse, these seeds can live up to a 90 years. And after a first clean-up, even though we have removed hundreds of trees, millions of young seedlings appear. It's basically fighting a losing battle. These evergreen trees were originally imported from Australia for our tanning industry.

Now the touchy subject: chemicals. One simply cannot get rid of Black Wattles unless you use a good herbicide. Cutting a black wattle and hoping it will die, is wishful thinking. We do not use any chemicals at all, with the result that we have an on-going battle, but which provides employment opportunities as we hire several casual workers every year to do another clean-up.


The seed pods on one branch of a Black Wattle tree


Growing habit of the Black Wattle


The flowers of the Black Wattle also causes great outbreaks of hay fever among hay fever sufferers during spring.