The road West

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm with a couple of ink scribbles

Taking the road West from us and going from Rustenburg towards Botswana, the landscape suddenly changes from bushveld to a somewhat dry and arid landscape, especially in winter, when everything turns to lovely yellow and brown hues.

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Short-cut through Spring Farm

 W&N watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book

Often, when I go to Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa), I take this short-cut through Spring Farm past the little dam. It’s a gravel road, forcing one to travel slower and take in the scenery and I often have tortoises, hedgehogs, guinea fowl and small buck crossing my path. I much prefer it to the quicker route along the main tar road.

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En route to Magaliesburg

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

Whenever I go to Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa) just 13km from us, I choose to take a short-cut through Spring Farm and although it is a gravel road, I do away with lots of traffic and getting stuck behind trucks on their way to Rustenburg or Botswana and, to top it all, I see lots of wildlife. It’s a route we used to take with the horses during my horse riding days.

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A blank page

W&N watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm

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a blank page . a new journal . what shall I do
dream / sing / write / wait / think / pause / garden / chat / paint
decided to paint

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All of life is a journey

W&N watercolours in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book - no preliminary sketching

“All of life is a journey - which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us. We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there.”

- Unknown

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A little bit curious...

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

When you come to a bend in the road, aren’t you just a little bit curious as to what lies just around the corner…?

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A rumble of thunder

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

A rumble of thunder, a shower of rain and a murder of crows heading away from the rain...

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Muddy tracks

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

 

Muddy tracks weave o'er hills & valleys enticing continuous exploration of my much-loved Tarlton ...

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Keep discovering life

 

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

I yearn to keep ‪walking‬, keep ‪drawing‬ and keep discovering life along the way.

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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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View across the road

'I open my eyes and see the world in a new light. I view everything as if I were a child seeing a freshly opened flower for the first time.'

W&N watercolour on DalerRowney 220gsm heavy-duty sketching paper 

The view across the road from my studio – I stare at this every day, and every day I am amazed at the different play of colours on the landscape….

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Passion - your path to success,

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.”

 ~ Goethe 

W&N watercolour on X-pressit 300gsm 

I have found that you can bring greater joy, financial flow, and deep fulfillment into your life through a business that is aligned with your highest path, something that you are totally passionate about. 

It's all too easy to pick a career in order to make enough money to "someday quit and do what you really want to do". Education or even talent aren’t worth much without passion. So do the stuff that you love and you've always wanted to do because without it, you'll feel stuck and unfulfilled. 

Whatever journey your path takes you on, the most important thing is to have passion in what you do. So the answer is to have complete clarity on what is most deep and meaningful to you right now. "Our passion exists in the space of awe and amazement that we so willingly stepped into as a child. We can not see our dreams, know our true calling, hear our true voice when we look with a sense of desperation, impatience or doubt. Only looking with Eyes of Awe will its radiance greet you and invite you to play with it." 

From "Finding your Passion" by Keri Coffman-Thiede

Successful people have made an important discovery - that the journey itself is even more important than the goal. So choose how you want to spend your life - choices made with intention bring peace.

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On the other side of the fence

W&N watercolour on grey cardboard 

The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be. 

- Robert Fulghum 

 How true that saying is that the grass is greenest where it is watered – the same as with any lawn or garden, if we don’t tend to our life and our relationships, soon everything will be barren and dead… 

 A friend’s driveway on their farm – Magaliesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.

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Technology and Country living

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

A track leading up to a friend's farm - dodging the rocks and ditches in the road is quite a feat. The Roads Dept. has long since stopped grading most of our farm roads and it's up to the individuals living along that stretch to maintain the road. And the telephone poles don't actually have any wires, that's artistic license - those have been stolen long ago and not been replaced by Telkom. So, the general mode of transportation around here is 4 × 4 and the general method of communication is the iPhone as technology meets up with Country Living.

Location : Hillside, Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa

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Art is Magic!

"Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other."
~ Mary Caroline Richards

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

W&N watercolour on smooth inside back cover of Amedeo watercolour pad - no preliminary sketching

The inside back covers of the various watercolour pads are nice and smooth, almost like painting on Yuppo, and it fascinates me how one can wait for the paint to dry and then add layers or, just with a wet brush, lift the paint completely, leaving the clean, white surface again! Makes fixing 'mistakes' a cinch!

Sketching more

MOST of the earth is beyond the walls of buildings, and is untouched in appearance by the art of the sculptor or the painter.

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


Quick landscape sketch with my Parker Fountain Pen, black Quink ink and some colour added - done in my Moleskine Folio (A4) 200gsm Watercolour sketchbook

Sketching has always been one of my great passions, but of late I've been neglecting it in favour of doing mostly watercolours. I've decided to go back to basics and sketch a lot more. Sketching forces you to look in more detail, and ask yourself what you actually see. You’ll end up seeing a lot more than you would otherwise. There’s something about holding a pen or pencil in your hand that gets your creative juices flowing in a much different way than holding a brush. When you get used to sketching, the movements of your hand become much more fluid and it becomes really easy and natural. The more you practice, the better you will become at sketching.

Around the corner there may wait...

Around the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate;

And though I oft have passed them by,

A day will come at last when I

shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

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 Arches 300gsm - 10" x 7"

Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa) is mostly a farming community, with small farms and smallholdings scattered throughout the area, and I just love peeping up all the little roads leading to where somebody is eking out a living from the soil and nature. We don't even have many of the basic services like the laying out of roads to the various farms and properties - these are all done by the owners themselves, often just being little tracks that go for miles before reaching the house.

This is one such little road not far from us, leading off the Sterkfontein Main road, taking one over the hills to where a couple of owners farm with chickens, cattle and vegetables.