Standing out in the crowd

Sometimes I think we may feel that we have to do the big things in life to stand out from the crowd, but I think all you have to do is be yourself.... like this little daisy....

Watercolour on Visual 200gsm watercolour paper done on a textured back-ground by "GHOSTBONES"

I've been experimenting with some textures lately and for this one I printed the texture on watercolour paper first and then painted over it. I had just read an article a few days ago on 'standing out in the crowd', and as the painting looked a bit bland and mono-tone, the little daisy came to mind.

Please don't kill my Gemsbuck...

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

The Gemsbuck (Oryx gazella) is one of the most handsome antelope in Africa, with it long rapier-like horns and striking markings. They can form herds of up to 20 - 30 animals. Gemsbuck are grazers but will survive on browse in times of drought. When wounded they can be very dangerous animals to approach on foot. The horns of the calves grow extremely fast and when they emerge from concealment after birth their horns are very evident. This has lead to the myth that a Gemsbok is born with horns.

Females have longer, thinner horns and that's pretty much the only outward difference between males and females and as such, many hunters mistake females for males.

Please don't kill my antelope,
She hasn't bothered you.
She hasn't kicked you in the shin
Or spit inside your shoe.
She hasn't bitten off your nose
Or stomped on your rear end.
Please don't kill my antelope,
My antelope's my friend!
- Author unknown

Daisy in Acrylic

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


Acrylic on Visual 200gsm watercolour paper - 8" x 12"

The Daisy follows soft the Sun
And when his golden walk is done
Sits shyly at his feet
He, waking – finds the flower there
Wherefore, Marauder, art thou here?
Because, Sir, love is sweet!
We are the Flower, Thou the Sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline
We nearer steal to Thee!
Enamoured of the parting West
The peace – the flight – the Amethyst
Night’s possibility!
- Emily Dickinson

One of my rare acrylics - as happens often, this one was done over another acrylic which I decided I don't like! But I've also found a blessing in that, because all the paint on top of one another provides a wonderful texture!

From my portfolios of "Flowers":http://www.redbubble.com/people/mareeclarkson/collections/4602-flowers-1 and "Acrylic Paintings":http://www.redbubble.com/people/mareeclarkson/collections/4333-acrylic-paintings

Winter Setting in

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”
- Anton Chekhov

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


Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

Although the lawn in my garden is still thick and green from all the rain we've had, the veld and roadside is starting to show the effects of Winter - all the Cosmos is gone and the tall thatching grass is yellow and dry, just waiting for the first careless cigarette to be flicked out of a car window - this Black Wattle tree still hadn't recovered from the ravages of last year's fires and got a second dose when the property owner did his fire-break this week. Pity, but fire-breaks are a necessary evil if we are going to be protecting our properties from these, sometimes dangerous, fires.

From my portfolio of Landscapes on redBubble

The Poinsettia and the Daisies

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

Watercolour and acrylic on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper 

- 12" x 8"

Did you know that the poinsettia has a special day all its own? By an Act of Congress, in the U.S., December 12 was set aside as National Poinsettia Day. The date marks the death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, who is credited with introducing the native Mexican plant to the United States. The purpose of the day is to enjoy the beauty of this popular holiday plant.
So, be sure to give someone you love a poinsettia on December 12, National Poinsettia Day!

The star-shaped poinsettia has become one of the best known floral symbols of the Christmas season and is considered the most popular potted plant during that time of year.

They were introduced to the United States over 125 years ago when they were brought here in 1828 by America's first ambassador to Mexico, Dr. Joel Poinsett. Native to Mexico, the “Flor de Noche Buena” - flower of the Holy Night, was thought by many eighteenth century Mexicans to be symbolic of the Star of Bethlehem

A charming story is told of Pepita, a poor Mexican girl who had no gift to present the Christ Child at Christmas Eve Services. As Pepita walked slowly to the chapel with her cousin Pedro, her heart was filled with sadness rather than joy.

"I am sure, Pepita, that even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes," said Pedro consolingly.

Not knowing what else to do, Pepita knelt by the roadside and gathered a handful of common weeds, fashioning them into a small bouquet. Looking at the scraggly bunch of weeds, she felt more saddened and embarrassed than ever by the humbleness of her offering. She fought back a tear as she entered the small village chapel.

As she approached the alter, she remembered Pedro's kind words: "Even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes." She felt her spirit lift as she knelt to lay the bouquet at the foot of the nativity scene.

Suddenly, the bouquet of weeds burst into blooms of brilliant red, and all who saw them were certain that they had witnessed a Christmas miracle right before their eyes.
From that day on, the bright red flowers were known as the Flores de Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night, for they bloomed each year during the Christmas season. Today, the common name for this plant is the poinsettia!

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From my portfolio of Flowers on RedBubble

Winter moving in

Brew me a cup for a winter's night.
For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;
Spice it with love and stir it with care,
And I'll toast our bright eyes,
my sweetheart fair.
~Minna Thomas Antrim


Acrylics on canvas panel 12" x 9"

I've been experimenting a bit more with Acrylics these days, trying to break away from that "watercolour" look I'm still getting with my acrylics, and as the old adage goes, "A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!"

South Africa is famous for its sunshine. It's a relatively dry country, with an average annual rainfall of about 464mm (compared to a world average of about 860mm). While the Western Cape gets most of its rainfall in winter, the rest of the country is generally a summer-rainfall region.

The Western Cape gets most of its rain in winter, with quite a few days of cloudy, rainy weather. However, these are always interspersed with wonderful days to rival the best of a British summer. The high mountains of the Cape and the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal usually get snow in winter.

Winter in South Africa (May to July) is characterised in the higher-lying areas of the interior plateau by dry, sunny, crisp days and cold nights. So it's a good idea to bring warm clothes.
The hot, humid KwaZulu-Natal coast, as well as the Lowveld (lower-lying areas) of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, offer fantastic winter weather with sunny, warmish days and virtually no wind or rain.

A subtropical location, moderated by ocean on three sides of the country and the altitude of the interior plateau, account for the warm temperate conditions so typical of South Africa - and so popular with its foreign visitors.

At the same time, temperatures in South Africa tend to be lower than in other countries at similar latitudes - such as Australia - due mainly to greater elevation above sea level.

On the interior plateau the altitude - Johannesburg lies at 1 694 meters - keeps the average summer temperatures below 30 degrees Celsius. In winter, for the same reason, night-time temperatures can drop to freezing point, in some places lower.

South Africa's coastal regions are therefore warmest in winter. There is, however, a striking contrast between temperatures on the country's east and west coasts, due respectively to the warm Agulhas and cold Benguela Currents that sweep the coastlines.

Being in the southern hemisphere, our seasons stand in opposition to those of Europe and North America, so, yes - we spend Christmas on the beach!
From South Africa Travel Info

From my portfolios of Landscapes with Water and Acrylic Paintings on RedBubble

The purest joy that Earth can give

Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the true
lover of flowers is born, not made. And he is born to happiness
in this vale of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that
earth can give her children, joy that is tranquil, innocent,
uplifting, unfailing.
- Celia Thaxter, An Island Garden, 1894

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

Painting flowers has become quite a passion of mine, after spending years avoiding them. My thinking behind that: there are so many wonderful flower artists out there, excellent at capturing their beauty, how much more could I add? After trying a couple, I fell in love with it and realised that there are thousands of ways to portray the beauty of flowers, and that artists will NEVER be able to exhaust the many ways of showing off one of nature's wonders!

Rampage of Appreciation

Watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm sketchbook

Appreciate your friends
and family
and hold them near.
NOW

Compliment yourself
on the day’s achievements
no matter how big or few they are.

Appreciate the stamina of your body.
And who you are.

Turn toward
your perfect life.
It is the best feeling.

Go on a rampage of appreciation.

Relax and breathe into appreciation
of what you shared.
No relationship is ever done.
It’s all eternal.
- Maree Clarkson

Daisies Postcard 2

I'm a pretty little thing,
Always coming with the spring;
In the meadows green I'm found,
Peeping just above the ground,
And my stalk is cover'd flat
With a white and yellow hat.


Little Mary, when you pass
Lightly o'er the tender grass,
Skip about, but do not tread
On my bright but lowly head,
For I always seem to say,
"Surely winter's gone away."
- Ann Taylor, "The Field Daisy"

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

"Daisies Postcard" - Watercolour on handwritten background text on Visual 200gsm - 12" x 10"

Every Spring, the daisies in my garden spring up with such exuberance and last spring I just had to paint some of them!

I'm exploring doing some watercolours on back-grounds with handwriting on them (this one from Boccacino), and find it gives some lovely soft effects. First I print out the texture on watercolour paper and then add the sketches and watercolours.

Winter Bullrushes

“Never cut a tree down in the winter time. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.”
- Robert H. Schuller

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

Winter Bullrushes - W & N Watercolours on Arches 300gsm - 7" x 10"

I absolutely LOVE Bullrushes and used to have them growing at my pond (in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa), until I discovered how quickly they take over an area, killing everything in its path. I also used to cut the velvety flowering spikes to arrange in a vase, absolutely gorgeous!, also only until I discovered that, when they're ripe and ready to disperse their seeds, the velvety spike would burst open, covering the house with bundles of dense, cottony fluff! Only the female flower does this, the male withers and dies once it has dispersed its pollen.

Typha Typhaceae is found in a variety of wetland habitats. These plants are known in British English as bulrush, bullrush, or reed mace, in American English as cattail, punks, or corndog grass, in Australia as cumbungi & also bulrush, and in New Zealand as raupo.

Some interesting information : the dense cottony fluff was used for stuffing Futons in Japan before the advent of cotton.

Around the corner there may wait...

Around the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate;

And though I oft have passed them by,

A day will come at last when I

shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

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

 W & N watercolours on Arches 300gsm - 10" x 7"

Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa) is mostly a farming community, with small farms and smallholdings scattered throughout the area, and I just love peeping up all the little roads leading to where somebody is eking out a living from the soil and nature. We don't even have many of the basic services like the laying out of roads to the various farms and properties - these are all done by the owners themselves, often just being little tracks that go for miles before reaching the house.

This is one such little road not far from us, leading off the Sterkfontein Main road, taking one over the hills to where a couple of owners farm with chickens, cattle and vegetables.

The magical process

"Painting is a magical process that I like, where you conjure something out of nothing; you get a little idea that leads you through ... You can go into a trance while you're doing it, so it's a nice contrast to real life."
- Paul McCartney

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

Watercolour on Arches 300gsm

Stuck indoors again, lots of rain, so no field sketching at the moment! This is one of the 6 paintings I did while it poured outside and being without electricity (and therefore internet as well!) - having to boil water for coffee on the little gas burner and sitting close to the window (for light). Did this from my imagination, taking inspiration from the blue, wet hues outside, the bright green of all the grass and all the muddy patches everywhere.

An Important day!

"The long span of the bridge of your life is supported by countless cables called habits, attitudes, and desires. What you do in life depends upon what you are and what you want. What you get from life depends on how much you want it, how much you are willing to work and plan and co-operate and use your resources. The long span of the bridge of your life is supported by countless cables that you are spinning now, and that is why today is such an important day. Make the cables strong."

~ L.G. Elliott

Watercolour on Arches 300gsm – 10” x 7” - Maree©

One of my Christmas gifts was 3 pads in various sizes of Arches Watercolour paper and I was TOTALLY ECSTATIC! Arches is not available in South Africa, or very difficult to get hold of at the least, and my daughter went to all the trouble of finding it for me! This painting is my second attempt at giving the paper a try (my first attempt was not that good!) – and it is completely different to the Bockingford I normally use; the flow of the paint, dry brush application, lifting, transparency and the way it soaks. A wonderful way to start the new year and I've been having a ball ever since!

Come Walk with Me

"Are you feeling, feeling, feeling like I'm feeling

Like I'm floating, floating, up above that big blue ocean

Sand beneath our feet, big blue sky above our heads,

No need to keep stressing from our everyday life on our minds

We have got to leave all that behind."

- The Avett brothers

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

W&N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm - 8" x 12"

I turn 65 this year and one of the images I have in my head, is me, at the age of 90, running on the beach in a long, flowing, white dress, parasol in hand, skipping and jumping with joy! and of course, living in My Dream Cottage by the Sea!

The Law of Attraction teaches us that, what you think about, you bring about, and these two thoughts are constantly on my mind, so what do YOU think the odds are...?

Have a great day everybody!

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Wooden boats

I was proud of the waves I had made, but wondered how many boats I was supposed to rock.

- Phil Donahue

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

W&N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8" 
For this painting I was inspired by Elizabeth Kendall's beautiful photograph "A boat in the harbour".

I'm absolutely MAD about wooden boats, they just call out to be painted! And yet I very rarely do, suppose I don't get much opportunity to sketch them 'live'.

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A Farmhouse somewhere in the Karoo

I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch.

- Ella Maillart

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

W & N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

The Karoo (a Khoisan word of uncertain etymology) is a semi-desert region of South Africa. It has two main sub-regions - the Great Karoo in the north and the Little Karoo in the south.

The Great Karoo has an area of more than 400,000 square kilometers. From a geological point of view it has been a vast inland basin for most of the past 250 million years. At one stage the area was glaciated and the evidence for this is found in the widely-distributed Dwyka tillite. Later, at various times, there were great inland deltas, seas, lakes or swamps. Enormous deposits of coal formed and these are one of the pillars of the economy of South Africa today. Volcanic activity took place on a titanic scale. Despite this baptism of fire, ancient reptiles and amphibians prospered in the wet forests and their remains have made the Karoo famous amongst palaeontologists.

Western people first settled in the Cape in 1652, but made almost no inroads into the Karoo prior to about 1800. Before that time, large herds of antelope, zebra and other large game roamed the grassy flats of the region. The Khoi and Bushmen, last of the southern African Stone Age peoples, wandered far and wide. There were no Europeans and no Africans of Bantu extraction.
Info from "Wikipedia"

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Downtown Shopping

To explore your creative side, express yourself,

in depth and knowledge.

There is no need to be quiet.

There is no need to hold back.

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

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

The Cape Malay community is an ethnic group or community in South Africa. It derives its name from the present-day Western Cape of South Africa and the people originally from Maritime Southeast Asia, mostly Javanese from modern-day Indonesia, a Dutch colony for several centuries, and Dutch Malacca, which the Dutch held from 1641 - 1824. The community's earliest members were enslaved Javanese transported by the Dutch East India Company. They were followed by slaves from various other Southeast Asian regions, and political dissidents and Muslim religious leaders who opposed the Dutch presence in what is now Indonesia and were sent into exile. Starting in 1654, these resistors were imprisoned or exiled in South Africa by the Dutch East India Company, which founded and used what is now Cape Town as a resupply station for ships traveling between Europe and Asia. They were the group that first introduced Islam to South Africa.
~Info from "Wikipedia": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Malay ~

I did this from my imagination, starting off with two figures, letting it develop as I went along. Therefore, here the image was the inspiration for the words, whereas, often a song or certain words will be the inspiration for my sketch.

Most of the Malay people (about 166 000) live in the Bo-Kaap at the foot of Signal Hill in Cape Town and some of their recipes are world-renowned as "traditional South African dishes". Here's a recipe for an age-old favourite :

Bobotie

Bobotie is a sweet curry mince dish set in an egg custard traditionally served on yellow rice, but is delicious with Basmati too.

Ingredients:
Oil
1 slice of white bread soaked in milk
2 onions, chopped finely
2 t crushed garlic
500g topside mince
15 ml curry powder
2 ml salt
2T Chutney
2T brown vinegar
2T Worcester Sauce
2t Turmeric
2T Brown sugar
100 ml sultanas
2 eggs beaten separately
1 cup milk with a pinch of Turmeric

Method:
Heat oven to 180 deg C. Fry onions in oil. Add mince and brown.
Add the curry powder and other spices.
When well browned, remove from the heat.
Mix in the Sultana’s and one beaten egg and the soggy bread.
Spoon into a greased oven dish.
Mix the milk and second egg together.
Pour over the mince mixture.
Arrange some bay leaves on the surface.

Softly the evening came

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape; tinkling vapours arose; and sky and water and forest seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

W & N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

This painting was inspired by the above poem by Longfellow – 'his golden wand o'er the landscape' – what beautiful words!

Seeking Nature in Spring

Who are you, Nature?

I live in you;

for fifty years I have been seeking you,

and I have not found you yet.

- Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

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

Watercolour in Moleskine Folio 200gsm watercolour sketch-book 12" x 8"

Ever since I attended a watercolour class with Angela Eidelman in Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa) almost a year ago, I've been experimenting with bolder and bolder colour, something she taught me, "be bold and never be scared of colour!" It certainly pays off with watercolours, especially if the work is fairly small. Here I took my cue from all the Spring colours abounding in my garden last Spring at the end of a hard, cold winter.

Why the environment has to be preserved

Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.
- Bill Bradley

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

Done from my imagination, no preliminary sketching - W & N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

We're still having a lot of rain here in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa, and my palette is definitely being affected by this - I'm drawn to all the wet and cool colours as we haven't being seeing much of the sun at all. Our dams are filled to capacity, rivers are swollen and causing flooding and, of course, the gardens are smiling!

I'm not sure whether us humans are all to blame for 'global warming' and the strange weather patterns, because Mother Earth has her own natural cycles of warming and freezing, but the mess that us humans make on this planet is of major concern to me. Isn't a beautiful landscape enough incentive for each and every one of us to take responsibility for our mess in order to preserve it....?

My dream of a Cottage by the sea

“We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfils the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.”
- Ben Okri

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

Aaaah, the dream.... (probably on the West Coast of South Africa.) Done from my imagination – W & N watercolours on Arches 300gsm - 10" x 7"

My dream of a cottage by the sea… There are songs written about it, there are books written about it and poems written about it – the sea. How many of us have the dream of owning a cottage by the sea?

I don't mean a unit in a complex by the sea, I've had one of those in a busy, busy seaside town... I mean a place of peace and tranquility, far from the madding crowd, quiet walks on the beach with not a soul in sight, collecting shells and drift-wood, sitting on a rock watching the ships go by… listening to the sound of thunder and lightning on a windy stormy night, intermingled with waves crashing on the beach, feeling save in the warm glow of the fire crackling in the hearth...

“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire, the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.”
- Robert Kiyosaki

Gone to the forest

“This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. 'That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.' There is my creed.”

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

W & N Watercolour on Arches 300gsm - 10" x 7"

I was feeling a bit down the other day and decided the best remedy is to paint.

The Magical process

"Painting is a magical process that I like, where you conjure something out of nothing; you get a little idea that leads you through ... You can go into a trance while you're doing it, so it's a nice contrast to real life."
- Paul McCartney

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


Watercolour on Arches 300gsm

Stuck indoors again, lots of rain, so no field sketching at the moment! This is one of the 6 paintings I did while it poured outside and being without electricity (and therefore internet as well!) - having to boil water for coffee on the little gas burner and sitting close to the window (for light). Did this from my imagination, taking inspiration from the blue, wet hues outside, the bright green of all the grass and all the muddy patches everywhere.

Give yourself the Gift of Time

"In order to hear your calling and answer it, you must generously give yourself the gift of time. It's not how fast you make your dream come true, but how steadily you pursue it."
- Sarah Ban Breathnach

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



This was my sixth painting I did yesterday, for various reasons. I normally do two or three a day anyway, but yesterday the Universe played in my favour. It rained virtually the whole day, keeping me from pursuing my normal activities like gardening, taking a walk on our smallholding, generally just checking on everything and finding subjects to sketch and the electricity was off the whole afternoon, leaving me computer-less and not spending so much time on-line! Sitting at my studio window, which was the only source of light, I relaxed, determined not to get het up by the situation

These are small studies (10" x 7") done on Arches 300gsm watercolour paper (from my imagination and no sketching beforehand) and this particular one was inspired by all the rain we are having - my lawn is totally water-logged, as I discovered when I went outside to do a quick check on my new baby chicks, sinking ankle-deep into pools of water. They were fine, Mother Bobby had led them into the newly built chicken coup (next on the sketching list) and they were happily nestling under her feathers.

African Joy and Sorrow

"The triumph of life is the joy experienced thereafter."
- Maree

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


Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - done from a photograph of Guinea standing on the wall, forlornly calling his missing wife.

A couple of years ago, one of my guinea fowl sitting on eggs was killed by a dog, leaving 10 eggs, on the pint of hatching, without a mother. I gathered all the eggs and put them in a basket with a hot water bottle, trying to keep them warm to see if any of them would hatch. Two days later still nothing, but on the third day I heard a weak peep-peep from one of the eggs. None of the others showed any sign of life, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and open the one that was peeping. I gently peeled away the shell and lifted out a perfectly formed little guinea fowl, and placed him on the warm towel, drying his little body with a soft cloth until he lifted his little head and stared me straight in the eye.

That was the beginning of a beautiful, long relationship with "Guinea", who spent five years following me everywhere and providing us with endless hours of pleasure with his surprising antics. He even lured a wild guinea fowl female from the wild (they used to pass through our property in large flocks, travelling from one field to another) and together they reared 5 clutches of beautiful little guinea fowl, all of whom stayed on our property for many years.

When Guinea's wife disappeared one day, he was inconsolable, standing on the wall and calling for hours in that haunting 'phe-twee, phe-twee, phe-twee' that is so typical of the South African bush. After that, he would often disappear for a day or two until, one day, he didn't come home at all. I hoped and presumed that he had found another family and was happily roaming the fields surrounding our property.

“This life as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number, and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you and everything in the same series and sequence -- and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and this same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hour glass of existence will be turned again and again -- and you with it, you dust of dust!”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Vintage Coffee Roses

Oh, my love’s like a red, red rose,
That ’s newly sprung in June;
Oh, my love’s like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
- Robert Burns

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


Coffee and watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

Some more painting with coffee, this time with a bit of Cadmium Red added - the rose on the left is from my garden and the one on the right is done from an inverted image of one of Elizabeth Kendall's roses on FaceBook.

Happy New Year 2011!

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.
- Hamilton Wright Mabie



Here's wishing all my beautiful friends, fellow artists and bloggers a WONDERFUL, joyful and inspirational new year! In fact, I wish this for you for the rest of your life! This has been such an awesome year for me, and I don't know how to express all the feelings I've experienced here; the sharing, the support and the recognition from everybody that has crossed my path. May you all experience similar beautiful feelings in the new year!

As far as New year's resolutions are concerned, I have made only one, and will try to always keep to this:

To rise above the little things.

Merry Christmas & A Joyous 2011!

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?
~Dr. Seuss



One of my Guinea fowl watercolours turned into a Christmas card - this will be my last post for 2010 and here's wishing you all a joyous and inspirational 2011! I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody's art and inspiration in the new year and I would like to thank everybody for viewing my blog and leaving your lovely comments here!

Painted Dog

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.”
- George Orwell

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


'Wild Dog' - Coffee on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8" - Maree©

The Painted dog or *African Wild Dog* (Lycaon pictus), is a medium-sized canid found only in Africa, especially in Savannahs and other lightly wooded areas. It is also called the *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 ore less. 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.

Whilst the largest population resides in the Kruger National Park (South Africa), some wild dogs have been released into Madikwe, Pilanesberg and Hluhluwe-Mfolozi, South Africa.

I did this painting with coffee on tea-stained (Five roses, black, and VERY strong!) Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

Fantasy Arums

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
- Marcel Proust

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


Arum Lilies - Acrylic on Gesso primed un-stretched canvas - 9" x 12" - Maree©

Definitely a first for me, doing a subject that is not true to life. I mean, really, Orange Arums?! What next?! Normally for me, as here, once I apply a back-ground, that normally sets the tone for the rest of the colour palette. And it seemed a natural progression of incorporating orange as the contrast to the yellow back-ground.

All species of Arums (or Zantedeschia) are endemic to southern Africa. Z. aethiopica grows naturally in marshy areas and is only deciduous when water becomes scarce. It grows continuously when watered and fed regularly and can survive periods of minor frosts.

The Zantedeschia species are poisonous due to the presence of calcium oxalate. All parts of the plant are toxic, and produce irritation and swelling of the mouth and throat, acute vomiting and diarrhoea. A beautiful flower carrying a deadly secret!

Die Hard!

“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you dies each year when the leaves fall from the trees and their branches are bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.”
- Ernest Hemingway

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 sketch-book - 8" x 5"

These blue gum trees (Eucalyptus) on our smallholding (Tarlton, South Africa) are real die hards! They have withstood this past Winter's fire ravages and are already sprouting new young leaves and producing new bark under the old burnt, peeling bark. These trees will never cease to amaze me - I've even seen one that, after being struck by lightning and split down the middle, the one side continued growing, even producing new branches!

The Simple Beauty

Unfurl your cloak of silken white
Reveal your secret wand upraised at length
And not unlike a star you shine serene
To exalt the autumn-tide with silver cups.
Shall we drink sweet nectar as we praise
The simple beauty revealed now in truth?
Or shall we simply sit and idly gaze
Into the eyes of love I have for you?
Calla lily soft and silken white
With open heart I pledge my love this night.
- Author unknown

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



Arum lilies done one the back of a sheet of Photo printing paper, using coffee (Nescafé Instant, very strong, very black!) - for the back-ground. This paper is actually very thin, and ever so slightly glossy, so it was a completely different feel painting on this in stead of my normal heavy-weight watercolour paper I'm used to. It's also not conducive to allowing the paint, or coffee, to freely flow and mix. I also gave the back-ground a slight salt treatment, which then promptly refused to budge once the painting was dry! I had to scrub it off with a nail brush! I used fine table salt, maybe that could be the reason... But it has somehow imparted a raw quality to the painting.

Zantedeschia is native to southern Africa from South Africa north to Malawi. The Zantedeschia species are poisonous due to the presence of calcium oxalate. *All parts of the plant are toxic,* and produce irritation and swelling of the mouth and throat, acute vomiting and diarrhoea.

Did you know that the striking arum lily "flower" is actually many tiny flowers arranged in a complex spiral pattern on the central column (spadix)? The tiny flowers are arranged in male and female zones on the spadix. The top 7 cm are male flowers and the lower 1.8 cm are female. If you look through a hand-lens you may see the stringy pollen emerging from the male flowers which consist largely of anthers. The female flowers have an ovary with a short stalk above it, which is the style (where the pollen is received). The spadix is surrounded by the white or coloured spathe. According to Marloth, the whiteness of the spathe is not caused by pigmentation, but is an optical effect produced by numerous airspaces beneath the epidermis.


To buy a Greeting card or other fine art print of this image, go to My Redbubble

Coffee Trees - Flow-ers of energy

From the Non-physical, you created you, and now from the physical, you continue to create, and we are nothing if we are not Flow-ers of Energy. We must have objects of attention, that are ringing our bells, in order to feel the fullness of who we are, flowing through us, for the continuation of All-That-Is. That is what puts the eternalness in eternity.
- Abraham-Hicks

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


"Trees - Flow-ers of Energy - Coffee on Bockingford 300gsm

Some more painting with coffee, this is totally exciting! The back-ground was stained with tea first (black and very strong!) you can see it peeping through in the three corners) continuing with coffee when the tea was totally dry. Unlike the coffee, the tea is staining, so doesn't lift easily and takes over-painting and layering like a dream.

This was done exclusively with no sketching beforehand - I just followed the flow of the colours and, trees, being one of my favourite subjects, always seem to appear before my eyes! I also added a bit of Cadmium Red for interest and some Intense Green for a couple of leaves. The dark parts are where the coffee dried to a rich, glossy sheen on the original, but doesn't show up on the scan.

Done on a thick Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper - 12" x 8"

Reflections

Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us.
- Alan Cohen

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


"Reflections" - Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 8" x 12" (A4)

After all the coffee painting I've done (and there are more to follow!), I craved the good flow of my familiar and beloved watercolours and here I really just played with my colours wet-in-wet, with no preliminary sketching, enjoying the interaction of the colours and watching the picture appear! Nothing like watercolours! Whoot whoot!

Coffee Charred Landscape

"Because of the routines we follow, we often forget that life is an ongoing adventure. We leave our homes for work, acting and even believing that we will reach our destinations with no unusual event startling us out of our set expectations. The truth is we know nothing, not where our cars will fail or when our buses will stall, whether our places of employment will be there when we arrive, or whether, in fact, we ourselves will arrive whole and alive at the end of our journeys. Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art: to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed."
~ Maya Angelou - 'Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now'

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


"Charred Landscape" - Coffee and watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper
- 12" x 8"

Another exploration into the world of painting with coffee - I really love the natural, earthy colour it imparts and here I used it for the tree and all of the fore-ground, and got a bit bolder, using watercolour for the sky and mountains. The very dark parts on the tree and the trunks is achieved by dipping my brush into the very strong residue at the bottom of the glass and it actually dried to a rich, thick sheen, not visible on the scan. For the white areas I used art masking fluid, removing it afterwards (I just *love* peeling that stuff from the paper and my fingers!) and softening the stark white with a bit of coffee.

This is a depiction of our South African landscapes after the ravages of all the veld fires we have during winter.

Coffee Daisies

"Good Art comes from good Inspiration!"
- Maree

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


"Coffee Daisies" - Coffee and watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

I have discovered painting with coffee! I have used both coffee and tea in staining certain materials before, especially cotton, but never thought of using it in art until I saw some of Barbara Glatzeder's art on RedBubble.

I've painted these daisies almost totally with coffee, adding a bit of Cadmium Red to the background, leaving it to dry over-night. Then I did the flowers straight on the page with coffee the next morning (Nescafé instant, made VERY strong!), no sketching. A bit of grey/green was used for the flower stalks.

When looking at the original, the coffee, when it dries, leaves the richest, shiniest, wet-looking patina, better than any permanent staining watercolour, absolutely great! Wish they made coffee in other colours!! And as Barbara says, the artwork smells great!

I'm disappointed in the scanning of this image, as the rich patina of the coffee doesn't show at all.

You can view more Coffee Art HERE.

Gemsbuck in the Kalahari

I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?
- James Thomson

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


Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

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.

In the *Kalahari Desert in South Africa*, they have to trek vast distances to find water. The park covers an area of a little less than 10,000 square kilometers and consists of mile upon mile of rolling rust-red sand dunes, solitary trees and scattered grasses. For lovers of the ambience of untamed Africa, this hauntingly beautiful region has a special appeal all of its own. The Kalahari Desert is a part of the largest continuous area of sand in the world.

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.

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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.

Sossusvlei Dunes

The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity.
- Julia Cameron

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


"Sossusvlei Dunes" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8" - Maree©

Sossusvlei is a clay pan in the central Namib Desert, Southern Africa, lying within the Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia. Fed by the Tsauchab River, it is known for the high, red sand dunes which surround it forming a major sand sea. Vegetation, such as the Camelthorn tree, is watered by infrequent floods of the Tsauchab River, which slowly soak into the underlying clay. The Dead Vlei and Hidden Vlei clay pans lie near Sossusvlei.

Some of the spectacular hills of sand are, at a height of 300 meters, the highest in the world. Only after a heavy rainfall, which is a rare event in this area, does the vlei fill with water.
Info from "Wikipedia":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sossusvlei

This was done from a photograph supplied by a friend, taken on his recent visit.

Abstract Spring

“Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.”
- Thomas Hardy

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


"Abstract Spring" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 12" x 8"

Spring has arrived in South Africa, and although you wouldn't believe it today (we had another cold front creep in like a thief in the night!), the changing colours of the landscape is proof enough, as well as the appearance of the black-headed Oriole, delighting in the rich nectar offered by the Aloes (which are winter-flowering), and which will still offer their sweetness to the birds as if to make sure they are well-provided for during the last of the cold.