Africa's Wonder

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

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


"Africa's Wonder - Elephant" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 9" - Maree©

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.

African elephants are bigger than Asian Elephants. Males stand 3.6 m (12 ft) tall at the shoulder and weigh 5,400 kg (12,000 lb), while females stand 3 m (9.8 ft) and weigh between 3,600 and 4,600 kg (7,900 and 10,000 lb). However, males can get as big as 6,800 kg (15,000 lb!).

Some interesting info :
Elephants have four molars; each weighs about 5 kg (11 lb) and measures about 30 cm (12 in) long. As the front pair wears down and drops out in pieces, the back pair shifts forward and two new molars emerge in the back of the mouth. Elephants replace their teeth six times. At about 40 to 60 years of age the elephant no longer has teeth and will likely die of starvation, a common cause of death.

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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!

Fear of the Great White

“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.”
- Sven Goran Eriksson

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


Practice 1

I've been doing some quick practice sketches for larger paintings I'm planning. Anything bigger than A4 has been scaring the daylights out of me - I keep taking out the BIG piece of art paper and then quickly putting it away "for another day". I've just got to tackle those large canvasses now, no more procrastinating!

Here are a few sketches I've been doing over the past couple of days. They're all done on Bockingford 300gsm, working quickly to get a feel of the brush as it moves across the paper and they are all 12" x 9". Here I can see what works and what doesn't, where I have to go lighter or darker or where I can improve on my technique. Planning is something totally new to me, but for the large paper looming in front of me, it seems essential this time!


Practice 2


Practice 3


Practice 4


Practice 5


Practice 7

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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Black Wattles in Tarlton

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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


"Tarlton Black Wattles" watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm (no sketching) - Maree©
Size : 12" x 9"

The Black Wattle trees on our smallholding in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa, which we are trying our utmost to eradicate, have put up the most spectacular show of browns with their millions of seed-pods in between the greens. How can we even begin to think to destroy such beauty? Yet, for the survival of our own indigenous flora, it is a task we undertake every year in a bid to save some of our own natural growth.

Read more about the Black Wattle struggle HERE.

PAGES - New feature for Blogger

In case all my fellow 'Blogger' bloggers don't know it yet, Blogger now has a new feature called "PAGES", similar to the pages that you can add to WordPress. Mine appears just under my header, and I will be using it as a special place to add important announcements or pages about a specific topic. You are allowed 10 Pages (bit of a bummer, could've been more!) and you can find out more about it here at "The Computery"

'I Love the Way She Blogs' has also got an article "How to use Pages on Blogger"
and you can also go to Blogger's site "What are Pages?", which explains how to add the menus horizontally in stead of vertically.

A new tool to play with! How exciting!

Lonely Shores

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
- Lord Byron

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


Lonely Shore - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8.5" - Maree©

I've been missing the coast for a while now, haven't been for several months. Miss the sand between my toes, watching the sun rise over a brilliantly turquoise sea, the waves washing up little treasures to sketch... I love just sitting on the rocks, the breeze in my hair, the crabs scurrying around before the tide comes in again.

The beaches in Ballito, on the North Coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, stretch flat and smooth for long distances, ideal for long walks, and some stretches have lots of rocks, offering a place to sit and ponder, but way up the North Coast, at St. Lucia, the beaches are wild and undulating, covered with vegetation. The Loggerhead and Leatherback turtles breed in these waters and lay their eggs on these shores.



If you're interested in seeing a bit more of St. Lucia, go HERE

Early morning landscape

"With each sunrise, we start anew"

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


"Early Morning Landscape" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 9" - Maree©

The sun rising gently behind our Blue Gum forest and, with some imagination, the fields are turned into a wonder-wetland.

This painting is one in a series of paintings done by painting directly onto the paper, no sketching done before-hand. Lately I have found that, unless I am doing something very detailed, like the feathers of a bird, I am eager to get the image onto paper or canvass and don't feel like restricting myself with pencil lines.

This painting is for sale on my SALES BLOG.

Our Comfort Zone

"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!"

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



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.

Phoebe loses Stormy - RIP

A quick sketch I've done of Phoebe as I'm writing this - Phoebe back from feeding

Many of us have been following Phoebe, the Allen's Hummingbird, sitting on her nest in Orange County, California, via live cam (http://cam.dellwo.com/), whose babies, Sassy and Stormy, hatched on the 19th January 2010. The sad news is that Stormy died last night - apparently he hatched the same day as Sassy, but was only due to hatch 2 days later, so he was premature and weak and, therefore, did not make it. RIP poor Stormy...

But, of course, we must realise this is nature's way of ensuring that only the fit and strong survive. The second egg is normally laid as an insurance policy.


Sassy alone in the nest...

Art in the Garden

"Eagle's Fare" restaurant at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, Roodepoort, South Africa

Come along and browse art in the stunning outdoor setting of the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens in Roodepoort. 10% of all sales go to the Botanical Society's Garden Development Fund.

For further info or directions, e-mail botsoc@sisulugarden.co.za

Forthcoming dates:
Sunday 31 January 2010

Across a Moonlit Sea

"Across a Moonlit Sea" watercolour in Moleskine Folio 12" x 8" - Maree©

The Moonlit Sea

On a calm sea the moonlight shimmers
Holding all eyes entranced
Bright and silvery it glimmers
As the argent light danced
By the lapping shore when the hour is late
The rippling moonlight upon the sea hypnotizing
A place to ponder and contemplate
The undulately moonlight upon the sea mesmerizing
The silvery sea's slow, rhythmic measure in the night
The gentle breakers softly caressing the shore
The brilliant moonlight is eerie bright
Its refulgent shine of splendorous galore
The lulling of the gentle breakers seduces
Where hushed night shall ever be
The radiant patterns of the silvery water induces
A spellbound state by the becalmed moonlit sea

- by Thor's Fury

Allen's Hummingbird

"Allen's Hummingbird" watercolour in Moleskine Folio - Maree©

I've been following the progress via Live cam (http://cam.dellwo.com/) of the Allen's Hummingbird sitting on her eggs, laid on the 2nd and 4th of January 2010, respectively, and which are due to hatch within the next day or so. The link was supplied by well-known bird artist, Vickie Henderson, who also sketched the Humming bird. You can see Vickie's post and sketches on her blog, Vickie Henderson Art.

I did this sketch from screenshots taken of the live cam. Not knowing Hummingbirds very well, I Googled it and somehow think I've made the beak much too curved (although it certainly looked like that on the screenshot) - the description read, "Allen's Hummingbird: Small, compact hummingbird; male has straight black bill, glittering green crown and back, white breast, and rufous sides, belly, rump, and tail. The throat (gorget) is iridescent copper-red. Feeds on nectar, insects, spiders, and sap. Swift direct flight, hovers when feeding." It also states that it is the female that incubates the eggs for 15 to 17 days, so maybe the female's bill is a bit more curved. All wonderfully new stuff to me!

I'm keeping a close eye one the Live cam, as I really would like to see the hatching of the eggs. Pop in again for an up-date!

Wetland (temporarily) in Tarlton again!

"Thicket by thicket and wetland by wetland, we are losing the remaining wilderness and diversity of life. The greenbelt is stopping the loss of natural features and the species they host."

~ Jim Bradley

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

Wetland - Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©
Size - 12" x 9" (SOLD)

A foray into bright colours, showing my excitement - the Tarlton stream is flowing again! It was almost as wide as the road as it snaked its way towards the dam, dropping several meters as it flowed through the broken dam wall. We haven't seen this sight for many years, but the plentiful rains we've had must've caused it to break through the man-made obstructions further up-stream. In this view the stream is flowing from the top down towards the old dam.

Longing back to the days of swimming in the dam with our horses before the wall was broken down...

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Farm shed in Magaliesburg

"The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But it is why in heaven's name isn't everyone more creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create, but why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything."


Farm Shed in Magaliesburg - watercolour 12" x 8.5" - Maree©

Magaliesburg, situated on the border of Gauteng and the North West Province, is renowned as a tourist destination, but also supports a vast farming community. I did this sketch of the shed on a farm not far from The Cradle of Humankind Visitors' Centre.