JUST ME :: and a stack of blank pages

:: Living creatively ::

About me

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realise it is play. The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is. I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away. When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious!

Monday, February 29, 2016

An African Moon in December

Black Pilot Lettering pen ink sketch of a full moon over my garden in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa

Sketching again...

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a Joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
- By Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)


Thursday, February 18, 2016

Young Aloe ferox

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

My experience is that this aloe (A. ferox) spreads easily from seed – from my original three plants, I now have over ten. They have sprung up all over the garden, obviously from seeds dispersed by the wind and birds. The only problem is that some of them are in unwanted locations and now I have the job of moving them to more suitable spots. But a chore I’m going to enjoy!

Aloe ferox (also known as the Cape Aloe, Bitter Aloe, Red Aloe and Tap Aloe), is a species of arborescent aloe indigenous to Southern Africa.


Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Graptoveria "Fred Ives"

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

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A succulent given to me by a friend a couple of months ago growing in a pot in my garden.

Category: Succulent
Family: Crassulaceae (Stonecrops)
Origin: Mexico (North America)

x Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’ – A beautiful and durable succulent plant that produces large clumps of rosettes to 8 inches tall by nearly 1 foot wide with broad bronze and pink succulent leaves atop short stems with 1’-2’ long branched inflorescences bearing red-orange centered pale yellow flowers in summer. Plant in full to part sun in a well-drained soil. Little irrigation required.

The leaves are broad and stiff, overlapping each other, with concave upper surface, rubbery to the touch, waxy pearly-bronze to purplish yellow-orange to blue green (depending on time of year and growing conditons). Often shading from grey-blue at the centre out to orange-bronze-purple. The purple blush is fairly consistent throughout the seasons. Higher light and heat seem to increase the purple a bit, though.
This is a vigorous plant and is great as a container specimen or in the ground in well-drained soils or raised planters. It is reportedly a hybrid of Graptopetalum paraguayense crossed with a plant in the Echeveria gibbiflora complex.



Sunday, February 14, 2016

Echeveria imbricata


Ink sketch and watercolour in Moleskine Watercolour sketch-book – 8″ × 5″

I’m absolutely mad about Echeverias and have a small section in my garden set aside just for them. My collection started off in the late 70’s when my father gave me three rosettes in a pot, which I transplanted into a rockery and soon they covered the whole area. Since then I have given away hundreds to friends, the geese got out of the pond area and made a hearty meal of them and they’ve survived many of the severe frosts we get in our area.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Autumn reds


Black ink sketch with colour wash in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book

Autumn – The colourful month of May filled with red daisies and orange leaves.


Monday, February 8, 2016

Spring splendour


Black ink sketch with colourwash in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book
It is somehow extremely satisfying doodling with ink and colour!

Spring is always a celebration of new light green leaves on the Celtis africana (Stinkwood tree) and sunny Euryops daisies.





Saturday, February 6, 2016

Fickle (and no, it’s not a plant!)

I sit here before the world, a very fickle person. Somehow I thought that I would be able to quit having so many blogs (I’ve got 28!), keeping only those important to me and deleting the rest. In stead, I make most “private” every now and then, but just for a while before making it public again, confusing the hell out of Google Analytics! On and off. On and off.

The problem is, I can’t stand to see a “public” blog just lying there, with the last post being a year ago. One of my pet peeves is finding a wonderful blog, only to discover that it has been abandoned. I know that one changes, that one loses interest in a certain topic. That’s life. Life changes constantly and what I was interested in five years ago might not be applicable now anymore. But why don’t people then just delete it? Why don’t I just delete it, especially those that don’t get many hits and don’t seem to interest anybody?

One reason could be that I want to keep the blog URL. Once you delete it, it’s gone forever. Another reason is that I just LOVE designing blog templates. I get great pleasure out of designing and manipulating the html code to see what I can come up with. And once I come up with something I like, I don’t want to let go of it! Another problem is, I have s-o-o-o-o-o-o many interests. Art, nature, gardening, jewelry making, collecting aloes and succulents, books and reading, insects, cooking (only of late), animals and wildlife, birds, my chickens, and thoughts on the Universe as a whole. And I’ve got enough thoughts and experiences for each topic to warrant its own blog. I’ve thought of putting everything on just one blog, but I’ve been told that blog readers are very specific. They have their topics and interests, and only want to read about that. So if you’re a chicken-lover and there are many other posts on all sorts of other random topics, they don’t return to that blog.

Another part of the problem as to why I can’t delete any blogs might also be that, in real life, I’m a hoarder. Don’t get me wrong, not as in those “Hoarders” TV programmes, but as in “collecting” things - feathers, stones, pebbles, pieces of driftwood, shells, notebooks, journals, fountain pens, crystals, pieces of wire and wood (there’s always some building project going on somewhere here on the smallholding, so just in case I need it), even cardboard boxes, in case I need to pack something away.

In the décor of my home I’m quite disciplined - I won’t display too much at one time, rather pack away a few things and bring out something new for a change. So there I’m OK, but my MAC is groaning under the weight of files, images, blogs and other useless information that I’ve collected over the years. A lot of it is necessary, like business and personal files, and as for the rest, it’s time for a clean-up. Fairly easy to do, just a bit time-consuming, but then, the internet is so full of wonderful stuff that needs collecting again! Thank heavens Blogger allows you 100 free blogs! lol!

Would you like to see all sorts of other random topics on this gardening blog…? Let me have your thoughts, thanks!

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Friday, February 5, 2016

Daisy love in Spring

Watercolour in my Moleskine 200gsm watercolour paper Nature Journal 

FLOWERS ARE ONE OF THE GREATEST INSPIRATIONS FROM NATURE!

Every Spring I revel in the masses of daisies that appear in one corner of my garden – no matter how cold the Winter has been, they’re the first to welcome the warmer weather with their beautiful colours!

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Summer Cosmos


Black ink sketch and colour wash in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book.

Summer goes hand in hand with fields of Cosmos flowers every November to March, covering the landscape in pinks, cerises and purples.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Dianthus in Terracotta Pot

A pot of Dianthus on a friend's patio. (W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm)

I couldn't believe the array of colours these pretty annuals come in (although some are biennial) - solid white, red, purple, pink and sometimes yellow, or with two colours or marks in the petals. I would've considered getting some of them, but they are native to most of Europe and western Asia, and my garden is mostly indigenous to South Africa. I've long ago given up trying to grow stuff from elsewhere, just too much trouble.

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Monday, January 25, 2016

Revamping my blog - What do you think?


I'm playing around again and am in the process of revamping my blog and have chosen this daisies image as a back-ground. Do you think it's too busy? Does it make reading difficult? Please be honest, I really don't mind at all, it's easy to change!

Thanks a lot for your feed-back!

UPDATE : Tue, 2nd February 2016 - I've decided to go for something else - hope you like it!

Thursday, December 24, 2015

A Merry Christmas 2015!


Here's wishing you all a very merry Christmas for 2015! I send my thoughts afar, and let them paint your Christmas Day at home!

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Fifty shades of brown

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm.

Using various shades of brown mixed from a variety of colours on my palette.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

A scene at my pond

W&N watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketchbook

I have this bit of Celtis forest (Celtis africana - White Stinkwood) at my wildlife pond and it's my favourite pastime to sit under the thatch umbrella and sketch part of the scenery. A few weeks ago the bare trees were just beginning to sport green leaves. This is also the area where Torti, my Leopard Tortoise, used to live before I relocated her to her new home at the Krugersdorp Game Reserve.


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Saturday, October 3, 2015

Sketching again

Black ink sketch and colour wash on Amedeo 200gsm

I feel it's time for sketching again, have been neglecting it of late, been preferring just putting colour straight to paper.

Black ink sketch in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketchbook

Black ink sketch in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketchbook

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Saturday, September 12, 2015

Short-cut through Spring Farm

 W&N watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book

Often, when I go to Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa), I take this short-cut through Spring Farm past the little dam. It’s a gravel road, forcing one to travel slower and take in the scenery and I often have tortoises, hedgehogs, guinea fowl and small buck crossing my path. I much prefer it to the quicker route along the main tar road.

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Sunday, September 6, 2015

Winter at the pond


W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

Winter is almost nothing but a memory and now spring is fully upon us, with the first spring rains having fallen over the past couple of days. But together with that came freezing temperatures as low as 12℃ yesterday. But soon all the cold will be in the past and I look forward to my wildlife pond once again bursting with summer colour.

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Friday, September 4, 2015

Cactus trichocereus

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

I'm absolutely in love with my two cacti! (C. trichocereus). The one at the back made a baby, which I transplanted into a pot and placed it next to its parent. I'm sure they whisper endearing comments to one another all day long!

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Friday, July 24, 2015

Autumn - wonderful time of the year!

A small W&N watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book

Autumn (fall) in South Africa (mid-February to April) offers the best weather of the year. Very little rain falls over the whole country, and it is warm but not too hot, getting colder as the season progresses. In Gauteng, autumn is fantastic, with hot sunny days, blue skies and warm, balmy nights.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2015

En route to Magaliesburg

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

Whenever I go to Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa) just 13km from us, I choose to take a short-cut through Spring Farm and although it is a gravel road, I do away with lots of traffic and getting stuck behind trucks on their way to Rustenburg or Botswana and, to top it all, I see lots of wildlife. It’s a route we used to take with the horses during my horse riding days.

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