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.

Fisherman's House

Never a fishermen need there be
If fishes could hear as well as see.
- Author Unknown

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


"Weskushuisie" - Watercolour in Moleskine Watercolour sketch-book - Maree©

Examples of the original little fishermen's houses on the West Coast of South Africa are becoming a rare site and artists seem compelled to capture images of an era long gone by. Not being anywhere near the Cape Province, I did this sketch from imagination.

The West Coast is a region of the Western Cape Province in South Africa and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and the Swartland region on the east.

The Cape West Coast stretches from Cape Town as far as the border with the Northern Cape at Touws River, including within its parameters the indescribably beautiful Cederberg Mountains, famous for centuries-old rock art. All along this stretch of coastline is a series of quaint historic towns and fishing villages with names like Lambert’s Bay, Paternoster, Saldanha and Langebaan that today roll with ease off the tongue, but until fairly recently were left to languor in relative obscurity.

South Africa's fishing industry has a long and eventful history. As early as 1658, a mere six years after the first permanent settlement at the Cape, four free burghers were given permission to settle in Saldanha Bay. They established themselves as fishermen and sold dried fish to the other burghers as well as to passing ships.

Today, three centuries later, the once unlimited fish stocks have been placed under such pressure through wastage and over-exploitation that it has become necessary to protect them from total decimation. As a result, the government has reduced catch quotas drastically across the whole industry. The number of fish meal and fish oil processing plants has also been reduced.

Dam on Spring Farm

It is only when we are aware of the earth,
and of the earth as poetry, that we truly live.
- Henry Beston, 1935

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 notebook

On our way to Magaliesburg, we often leave the main road and approach Magaliesburg via all the gravel roads, one of which leads past Spring Farm, a large cattle farm situated right next door to Maropeng, the Visitor Centre of the Cradle of Humankind. This is one of the dams on the farm and early in November last year we stopped and I did this sketch. The cattle on my side of the dam barely stirred as I sat down with my sketch-book - luckily!

This old stump on 84...

People in suburbia see trees differently than foresters do. They cherish every one. It is useless to speak of the probability that a certain tree will die when the tree is in someone's backyard .... You are talking about a personal asset, a friend, a monument, not about board feet of lumber.
- Roger Swain



This old stump is a relic from one of the blue Gums on our property sawn down many years ago, and now plays host to some moss and a lonely fern leaf. Was wondering if I should add a bit of soil, and maybe some compost? Would that be interfering with Mother Nature?