Consumed by desert sands

Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit of love into the desert? It is a frightening and sacred moment. There is no return. One's life is charged forever. It is the fire that gives us our shape.
- Mary Richards

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


"Consumed by desert sands" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm 12" x 8"

A short fiction ...

Trudging gingerly across the arid sands of the desert, the explorer is careful not to put a foot wrong, for he knows it may be his last. He scours the land and shifting valleys for tell-tale signs of disturbance in the sands below, always ready for the unexpected lurch of an alien being said to kill in one strike with a sharp spout of acidic venom to the face. A creature so secretive that no photographic evidence yet exists, but the locals know it’s there, always waiting in silence for its prey, waiting to strike ...

Just playing with watercolours on a clean sheet of paper gives me great pleasure, not knowing how it's going to turn out or what's going to show up. Here I used Burnt Sienna with a bit of Sepia, watching the interaction and flow of the colours. I can spend hours filling sheet after sheet with colour, watching how the colours react and fascinated by the contours formed in the process.

Silhouettes of Africa

The shadows now so long do grow,
That brambles like tall cedars show,
Molehills seem mountains, and the ant Appears a monstrous elephant.
(Evening Quatrains) - Charles Cotton

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

Watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm - 12" x 8"

Elephants in the shadow of a mountain on their way to water in the northern parts of the Kalahari desert (South Africa). This started off as a landscape, but I suddenly envisaged desert dunes and added the elephants.

.

Left-handed landscape

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”
- Leo F. Buscaglia

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


Landscape done with my left hand - watercolour, no sketching, on a scrap piece of photo printing paper - 12" x 8"

Talking about taking risks and doing things you've never done before, how about, if you're right-handed like me (and I'm NOT AL ALL ambidextrous!), painting something with your left hand...? I did this scene from my imagination with no sketching before-hand, and even managed to sign my name! This from a person who plays the keyboard ONLY with the right hand, and can't even get her foot to tap in tune with the music at the same time!

Windy morning on the dunes

Blustery, wind-swept grass

leaves dancing, everlast

Trees bowing, branches creep

dusty vision that I keep

Waves lapping, rocks abound

seagulls dipping, all around

- Jon Coe

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

Windy Dunes - watercolour in Moleskine Folio 12" x 8" - Maree©

Many a times I’ve sat on the dunes at Zinkwazi and reveled in the sight of the wind whipping the dune grasses into a frenzy, as if to align the landscape with the stormy seas, with white horses dancing in the distance and waves crashing furiously onto the beach as they’re driven onto the coast by the wind. I’m not normally a wind person, but at the coast it seems to have a purpose and doesn’t leave dust in your hair or dry out your skin.

African Wild Dog

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

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


African Wild Dog - Watercolour on Ashrad 200gsm - 8.5" x 12"


The African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus) is a medium-sized canid found only in Africa, especially in savannas and other lightly wooded areas. It is also called the Painted Dog, Painted Hunting Dog, African Hunting Dog, the Cape Hunting Dog, the Spotted Dog, the Ornate Wolf or the Painted Wolf in English, Wildehond in Afrikaans, and Mbwa mwitu in Swahili. It is the only extant species in the genus Lycaon, with one species, L. sekowei being extinct.

There were once approximately 500,000 African Wild Dogs in 39 countries, and packs of 100 or more were not uncommon. Now there are only about 3,000-5,500 in fewer than 25 countries, or perhaps only 14 countries. They are primarily found in eastern and southern Africa, mostly in the two remaining large populations associated with the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania and the population centered in northern Botswana and eastern Namibia.