A Farmhouse somewhere in the Karoo

I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch.

- Ella Maillart

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

W & N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

The Karoo (a Khoisan word of uncertain etymology) is a semi-desert region of South Africa. It has two main sub-regions - the Great Karoo in the north and the Little Karoo in the south.

The Great Karoo has an area of more than 400,000 square kilometers. From a geological point of view it has been a vast inland basin for most of the past 250 million years. At one stage the area was glaciated and the evidence for this is found in the widely-distributed Dwyka tillite. Later, at various times, there were great inland deltas, seas, lakes or swamps. Enormous deposits of coal formed and these are one of the pillars of the economy of South Africa today. Volcanic activity took place on a titanic scale. Despite this baptism of fire, ancient reptiles and amphibians prospered in the wet forests and their remains have made the Karoo famous amongst palaeontologists.

Western people first settled in the Cape in 1652, but made almost no inroads into the Karoo prior to about 1800. Before that time, large herds of antelope, zebra and other large game roamed the grassy flats of the region. The Khoi and Bushmen, last of the southern African Stone Age peoples, wandered far and wide. There were no Europeans and no Africans of Bantu extraction.
Info from "Wikipedia"

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Gemsbuck in the Kalahari

I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?
- James Thomson

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"

The gemsbok or gemsbuck (Oryx gazella) is a large African antelope, of the Oryx genus. The name is derived from the Dutch name of the male chamois, gemsbok. Although there are some superficial similarities in appearance (especially in the colour of the face area), the chamois and the oryx are not closely related.

In the *Kalahari Desert in South Africa*, they have to trek vast distances to find water. The park covers an area of a little less than 10,000 square kilometers and consists of mile upon mile of rolling rust-red sand dunes, solitary trees and scattered grasses. For lovers of the ambience of untamed Africa, this hauntingly beautiful region has a special appeal all of its own. The Kalahari Desert is a part of the largest continuous area of sand in the world.

Consumed by desert sands

Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit of love into the desert? It is a frightening and sacred moment. There is no return. One's life is charged forever. It is the fire that gives us our shape.
- Mary Richards

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


"Consumed by desert sands" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm 12" x 8"

A short fiction ...

Trudging gingerly across the arid sands of the desert, the explorer is careful not to put a foot wrong, for he knows it may be his last. He scours the land and shifting valleys for tell-tale signs of disturbance in the sands below, always ready for the unexpected lurch of an alien being said to kill in one strike with a sharp spout of acidic venom to the face. A creature so secretive that no photographic evidence yet exists, but the locals know it’s there, always waiting in silence for its prey, waiting to strike ...

Just playing with watercolours on a clean sheet of paper gives me great pleasure, not knowing how it's going to turn out or what's going to show up. Here I used Burnt Sienna with a bit of Sepia, watching the interaction and flow of the colours. I can spend hours filling sheet after sheet with colour, watching how the colours react and fascinated by the contours formed in the process.

Silhouettes of Africa

The shadows now so long do grow,
That brambles like tall cedars show,
Molehills seem mountains, and the ant Appears a monstrous elephant.
(Evening Quatrains) - Charles Cotton

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 - 12" x 8"

Elephants in the shadow of a mountain on their way to water in the northern parts of the Kalahari desert (South Africa). This started off as a landscape, but I suddenly envisaged desert dunes and added the elephants.

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Sossusvlei Dunes

The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity.
- Julia Cameron

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


"Sossusvlei Dunes" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8" - Maree©

Sossusvlei is a clay pan in the central Namib Desert, Southern Africa, lying within the Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia. Fed by the Tsauchab River, it is known for the high, red sand dunes which surround it forming a major sand sea. Vegetation, such as the Camelthorn tree, is watered by infrequent floods of the Tsauchab River, which slowly soak into the underlying clay. The Dead Vlei and Hidden Vlei clay pans lie near Sossusvlei.

Some of the spectacular hills of sand are, at a height of 300 meters, the highest in the world. Only after a heavy rainfall, which is a rare event in this area, does the vlei fill with water.
Info from "Wikipedia":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sossusvlei

This was done from a photograph supplied by a friend, taken on his recent visit.

First Light

early dawn | two-note, two note | who are you?
A Twitter poem from WATERMARK


"First Light" - Acrylic on Canvas board - Maree©

This was one of my first ventures into Acrylics. I've only done another 2 or 3 since then, and will get around to posting them some time or another.

Sunrise or sunset in the Kalahari Desert in the Cape Province of South Africa is always a spectacular affair. Here I have tried to capture the mystery of the desert as the sun rises over a landscape of golden grass and small red dunes.

The name Kalahari is derived from the Tswana word Kgala, meaning "the great thirst", or Khalagari, Kgalagadi or Kalagare, meaning "a waterless place". The Kalahari desert is part of the huge sand basin that extends some 900 000 square kilometers from the Orange River up to Angola, in the west to Namibia and in the east to Zimbabwe. The sand masses were created by the erosion of soft stone formations. The wind shaped the sand ridges, which are so typical of the landscape in the Kalahari.

In the southern Kalahari desert, which is the driest part, the Kalahari desert takes the form of a stationary dune veld. To the East and to the North of this, the Kalahari desert becomes a flat park-like terrain or savannah.

The Kalahari is not a true desert as it receives too much rain, but is actually a fossil desert.