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.