Gemsbuck (Oryx gazella) Gemsbok

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm 12″ × 8″ 

Nothing belongs to you

of what there is,

of what you take,

you must share. 

- Chief Dan George

The Gemsbok or Gemsbuck (Oryx gazella) is a large African antelope, of the Oryx genus. The name is derived from the Dutch name of the male chamois, gemsbok. Although there are some superficial similarities in appearance (especially in the colour of the face area), the chamois and the oryx are not closely related.

There are two “types” of gemsbok: a northern and southern variety; the only difference being that the northern gemsboks have black-fringed ears while the southern ones have longer horns and more rounded ears. Southern Gemsbok are more numerous and live in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, while the northern variant can be found in Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya and parts of northern Namibia in the Khomas Hochland area.
- Info from Wikipedia

This Gemsbuck is listed as Least Concern as the species is numerous and widespread, and populations are currently stable or even increasing. The Gemsbok’s future is secure as long as it continues to occur in large numbers on private land and in protected areas in Southern Africa. Its high value as a trophy animal should ensure further increases in its numbers on private land.

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Cape Dutch Homestead

Watercolour on Visual 200gsm 

This was virtually one of my first forays into watercolour painting in the late 80's and done from a photograph I had found in a magazine (I think!)

The Cape Province in South Africa is renowned for the Cape Dutch style of building since Jan van Riebeeck landed on our Southern shores in 1652. Early homes in Cape Town and it’s surrounds were built in the Cape Dutch architectural style, unique to a small area of the world and unquestionably beautiful. The style has sources as widely different as mediaeval Holland and Germany, the France of the Huguenots and the islands of Indonesia.

Houses in this style have a distinctive and recognizable design, with a prominent feature being the grand, ornately rounded gables, reminiscent of the townhouses of Amsterdam. The houses are also usually H-shaped, with the front section of the house usually being flanked by two wings running perpendicular to it. Furthermore, walls are whitewashed, and the roofs are thatched.

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Icons of Africa

W&N watercolour on amedeo 200gsm watercolour paper

Two icons of the African bush - the mysterious and legendary Baobab tree and the powerful, graceful and arguably one of the most beautiful of all the large cats, the elusive Leopard.

Did you know that the Baobab (Andansonia) is the largest succulent plant in the world? It is a tree that can provide, food, water, shelter and relief from sickness.

Solitary, arboreal and nocturnal, the Leopard is a master of stealth and survival. By far the strongest climber, it can haul prey twice its own body weight up into a tree where it can feast without disturbance from other predators.

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Chameleon (Chamaeleonidae)

W&N watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm 

Chameleons are fascinating and amazing creatures, always popular with anyone who sees them. They belong to the lizard family and the word 'Chameleon' means 'Earth Lion'.

I just love Chameleons and there was a time when I used to have them in my garden regularly - no more. I haven't seen a Chameleon for... years. Yes, years... I know they might have difficulty getting into the property because of the high walls, but I at least used to see them on my walks. The over-population in rural areas is really having an effect on these wonderful little creatures...

The main distribution of Chameleons is Africa and Madagascar, and half of the world's chameleon population lives on the island of Madagascar. They are famous for their ability to change colour. This serves as a form of communication, a response to temperature, light, and mood, as well as a defense against predators. Their eyes can rotate and swivel independently, enabling them to see almost a complete 360-degrees or observe two things simultaneously. Their tongues can be as long as their bodies. Chameleons can balance on a branch by gripping it with their claws and wrapping their tail around the branch to hold on. Chameleons can even sleep upside down!

There are thought to be more than 160 different species of chameleon that range from just an inch to more than a couple of feet in size. The tiny pygmy leaf chameleon, found in the jungles of Madagascar, is the smallest species of chameleon with some males measuring less than 3 cm long with the largest growing to almost 70cm long.

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Crow wears a silver band

W&N watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm
Cape or Black Crow (Corvus capensis) – endemic to Africa
With thanks to John from Midmarsh Jottings for the use of his beautiful photograph.

Crow wears a band of silver on his ankle, holds it out to watch it glint in the sun like cool creek water. It is noon. He is the only one out. All others have sought shelter under the canopy of live oak, the leaves beneath the chaparral, Crow, the only one among them unafraid to cast a shadow. He is a black body to absorb the sun’s heat, and yet unheated.

He’s silver studded with stones, turquoise to match the cloudless sky. He stretches out his leg again, watches sky and water glisten on his ankle.

He flexes claws and brings his foot beneath him again, stretches out his other, naked foot for balance. His feet are beautiful, furrowed skin like charcoal scales, sharp and onyx claws. As flexible as hands, good for grasping new-hatched thrushes or pulling gate hooks from eye bolts, and sleek. The humans see crow’s feet in the faces of their most seasoned elders, the scars of a learned life spent laughing.

Crows’ feet, the mark of craft and cunning, crow’s feet a sense of humour made skin and sinew.
He swings down on the branch, holds himself upside down and swinging, the silver falling down around his upper leg as he barks in delight. Sky below his feet and swaying, silver pools above his head. The world so beautifully inverted, he cannot keep from laughing. This is beauty: the world turned upside down. You can keep your lithe ingénues, your florid sunsets and cloying sentiment: beauty is all that cleft in two, a cunning spark suspended by crow’s feet, a fall from a deadly height and then the swoop of wing, the thickening of the air beneath splayed feathers. Seeing air rising within air and climbing on it, sun glinting blue-black as night sky off your feathers? Night colours blazing brilliant from your feathers? Beauty is day turned to night and night to day.

Heart beats furious beneath that dark breast, mind burns in onyx eyes. Beauty a glint of laughter in a bottomless dark eye. He barks again.

Sun above live oak, a thousand suns refracted on the earth below. Grasshoppers leap into the air clicking. Wild oats, tawn in the summer heat, lean eastward with the breeze, and a wall of fog on the ocean twenty miles west. All this beauty: all this.
<sup>Story from Coyote Crossing

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