Magaliesberg Mountains 1

“I've learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.”
- Unknown

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


"Magaliesberg Mountains 1" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 15" x 11" - Maree©

For one of the workshops I attended with Angela Eidelman in March this year, we had to stretch and prepare our paper at home beforehand and that week's practice was wet-in-wet again. We had to draw the outlines of the scene we were going to paint, from pictures Angela supplied, with Cerulean blue and then, paint it wet-on-wet, keeping in mind our composition, light source, focal point, etc., with Angela constantly peeping over our shoulders, giving encouragement and correction.

This is a scene of part of the Magaliesberg mountains, which runs for more than 100 kilometers from Rustenburg to beyond Pretoria. I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise!

Hartebeesthoek

“I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.”
- William Wordsworth

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


"Hartebeesthoek" - Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 11" x 7.5" - Maree©

Driving towards Hartebeespoort Dam, we go through the area of Hartebeesthoek (Gauteng, South Africa), where the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory is situated in a Nature Reserve in a valley in the Magaliesberg hills, 50km west of Johannesburg.

The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) is the only major radio astronomy observatory in Africa. The Observatory began as Deep Space Station 51, built in 1961 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America. The station tracked many unmanned US space probes. These included the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter spacecraft which landed on the Moon or mapped it from orbit, the Mariner missions which explored the planets Venus and Mars and the Pioneers which measured the Sun's winds. ("Hartebeest" refers to Gnu, a species that used to roam the area in vast numbers).

This area is still one of vast open spaces and unspoilt landscapes, green rolling hills and steep gulleys, with wildlife roaming free and sometimes even crossing the road (luckily none of the Big 5!), like Warthogs, Monitors, Mongoose, snakes, tortoises, guinea fowl, hedgehogs, Striped Polecats and small buck. In fact, anything that's small enough to get through the fence. We normally drive through the area at about 60km per hour and I, for the life of me, cannot understand people whizzing past at 120kph, oblivious to the beauty of nature all around.

Daisies infinite

"Daisies infinite
Uplift in praise their little growing hands,
O'er every hill that under heaven expands."
- Ebenezer Elliott ("The Corn Law Rhymer")

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


"One Spider-Daisy" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 11" x 8"- Maree©


The Gerbera Spider Daisy is from the sunflower family (Asteraceae). It has a delicate, spiky appearance and is attractive to bees, butterflies and/or birds, and deer resistant! (No idea why, Wiki doesn't say!)

It has approximately 30 species in the wild, extending to South America, Africa and tropical Asia and is a tender annual flower.

I just love sketching these daisies - each one has a different personality and seems to fairly beg you to look at them and take notice!

Zantedeschia (Arum Lily)

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.
- Georgia O'Keeffe

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


Arum Lilies - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 5.5" x 7.5"- Maree©

A study of some Arums in my garden - this year they have exceptionally long stalks (probably looking for some sunshine amidst all the shade!) and I have been picking bunches for my tall vase for the dining room table - stunning!

Redpoll

“Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.”

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


Common Redpoll {Corduelis flammea} - watercolour in Moleskine Watercolour sketch-book 8" x 5.5" - Maree©

I was visiting a friend a couple of weeks ago to see how it's going with the Red Bishop she took over from me - he somehow lost a WHOLE wing as a fledgling in my garden - and I saw this little unknown bird (to me) in her aviary and enquired what it was. Turned out it's a Common Redpoll from the US, which she had bought at a pet shop. If I had my way, all pet shops would be banned from selling anything besides cats and dogs, and even that is a stretch for me.