The Art of It

Complements of the Season to one and all. Rather late than never! At the end of last year, 12 Dec, I attended a wonderful workshop held by Di. All my followers know Di, her brilliant writing and her creative work very well. I went for two reasons really, not just because I like her work, although that helped! The main reason was to get better acquainted with acrylics as I have a problem with turps and am now starting to have a problem with Artists Spirits. The other reason was that I wanted to free up, or at least try to. Di is so creative and wonderfully inspiring. She makes it look just so easy! but it is not! The day disappeared so fast. It always does when you are having fun. I could have continued for longer and only realized when driving home just how exhausted I was. Everyday life got in the way of painting over the Christmas break but early January I took out my attempts at freeing up and studied what I had achieved. The floral one was not great although I did try to ge...

We spent two Tuesday mornings in the Company Gardens in central Cape Town. The first day I tried to paint this and failed dismally. The next week I used charcoal in an attempt to capture the architectural beauty of the building. Now I must try to paint it again! I love charcoal!

The last few "quickies" from Cheval Voyeur Farm. This was a quick oil while there was still quite a lot of water around. A charcoal sketch done while hiding in the bushes trying to keep out of the sun!

The Courtyard Hotel was the venue for our painting out in the open for a while. The painting of Deveils Peak was painted at the same location. I need more practice with buildings! We are painting in the Company Gardens at the moment and I am getting lots of practice in. Strange how the window is not centred in this building, but that is the way it is.

For the past couple of weeks we have been painting at Cheval Voyeur in Phillipi, a beautiful farm owned by Colleen and John Beake who have welcomed us painters with open arms. Thank you Colleen and John for sharing this beautiful environment with us.

After months of plotting and planning and little time left for blogging and painting, our upgraded SASA website has at last been launched! My thanks to Kerry and Dylan at Mallosol for their patience and support.

One of the wonderful places I have been priveledged to paint in was outside The Courtyard Hotel and The Wild Fig Restuarant. From there you have an amazing view of Table Mountain with Devils Peak in front. I painted this at home using an oil sketch I made on site. The trees are actually more crooked in life and bend majestically to the right from the continual South Easterly winds.