My Art is on the West Coast Route

I live on the West Coast, but now I am also represented in a much visited place along the route, the very special Nuweland Winery at Vyge Valley on the well-known R27 West Coast Route.

Today we hung 13 smaller works at Nuweland Winery and made wonderful plans for the future... including my participation in several Oyster Festivals and bringing in larger paintings! Invitations will follow!

Without much ado, here is the photo of the lovely venue for my art....with opening hours to suit everybody! That means seven days a week! For more info visit their website .

Bambi Boerbok

What a strange title, you may say! But our true South African Boerbokke or Boer Goats are a strong and healthy breed, world famous and already bred in places as diverse as Norway, Texas, New Zealand and Australia. I am fortunate, because for me to see a true farm on the West Coast, I need only need to head for Lelieblom Farm near Darling. The wonderful thing about Lelieblom is it's realness, maintained in a natural old-fashioned style by Mike and Karen Basson! This is not a farm bought by investors and turned into a pedicured and rebuilt 5-star international resort (as happened to many farms the last couple of years); but a real-life African farm reminiscent of the earlier settler days.

I love the earth, the barn-turned-home & farm restaurant, the poultry running around and all the farm animals - an artist's dream, as Maree would say! Most of all, I love the sight of these Boerbokke! I asked Karen about their natures and had to laugh at the answer I received: "friendly, curious, and extremely naughty! No garden, fence or tree is safe with them around!" (In vain I asked Karen for some wild aloes- they were all eaten! Ouch!)

Today I present TWO paintings. Pretty Bambi Boerbok is so sweet! Those pink lips turn into whiskers and he will sport a beard later on! Lucky are those with black or brown faces as the colour protect their eyes! I painted the background all white and quickly dabbed and in the stones, grass and foliage, all wet-in-wet.

The second painting is a large fantasy scene, which I later want to paint larger still! The animals and background belong to Lelieblom Farm but the girl and fence were imagined. It is called Sweet Sleep at Noon, based on a poem by Virgil. This work is an oil on canvas board and I used the little wooden artist's mannikin to work out the proportions for the girl.

Khwa Ttu # 5:Art is in their DNA!

The oldest artworks in Africa are those made by the San and found in caves. I suspect that they painted on rocks in the open air as well, but the natural materials they used did not last outside. But, as it goes with excellent genes, the artistic talent of the San people is in full flourish today! Yay for all the wonderful enduring paints they now have access to!

As this is a blog where I have to paint (I have to, seriously!), I painted this passage which is the start of the hiking trail, the indigenous plant garden and the tour of the farm. How cleverly the builders have once again made use of the idea of "anticipation", leading us towards the outside areas through this story-corridor! I liked the hollow window where we could gaze to the sea in the distance....that is my beloved next-door neighbour, the ocean, just visible from !Khwa Ttu.

Now look at these wonderful wall paintings done by current San residents of !Khwa Ttu! They have such interesting schema (formulas) for doing trees. They are not daunted by branches and show the best side, like the Egyptians did. Can you see that picture where "dreams" in the form of multi-coloured dots find their way back to a large tree, symbol of the artist's "birthplace"?Don't we all treasure our past and our childhood? These walls gave San artists the means of expanding their love of story-telling and personal history.

If you are interested in more San paintings, please visit fellow blogger Roger Brown who has also been to a San Centre, the one in Botswana. He gives a link where more art can be seen. I am not going to say " to be continued" today. The Cape is suddenly cold and stormy with winter upon us. So, I will do a "second season" later, as they say on TV!

Purple Ragwort (Senecio arenarius)

I am painting the last of the purple ragwort flowers of the season! Because I water my garden twice a week some of them survived a bit longer than they would in the field.

Ragwort make a wonderful display in springtime, colouring the fields around us to a purple landscape. The flowers are pretty but poisonous to humans and livestock as it is said to affect the liver. Yet my beloved voles, which I painted a few months ago, are vegetarians and find ragwort such a treat. It is just too cute to see the flowers in those little hand-like paws! I have found that if you move past a window or stir a curtain the voles are gone! They are extremely sensitive. Maybe the early morning sun blinded them a little this morning, so I stood behind the glass and got the photos I have been yearning for. I hope to invest in a telephoto lens for my camera, to catch some better shots in future. In the meantime I present Mr and Mrs Vole eating their purple ragwort breakfast.

I also paint these purple flowers to celebrate my brand-new purple blogspot : French Belles by Marie Theron. (http://frenchbelles.blogspot.com/) Be sure to visit this blog and see me having fun with small paintings and fashion!

Darling Angels

We could not believe that such a day was possible in the middle of summer: cold, wet, windy, the Full Cape Treatment! But, it was the day of the opening of the "Angels" Exhibition in our closest little town, Darling. I thought I would say very little (only this: The glass of Ormonde wine was very welcome!) and rather show lots of photos of the work of my closest artist friends and myself. My own contribution was two very sweet angels, first and second photos and one serious one. There is also a photo of the Mantis Art Gallery where it was held.

I need to say more of my serious angel. I saw this image as a large sculpture in Budapest when I had a solo exhibition there. It was midday and my photo showed a shadow so dark, it looked like a sharp gash through the sculpture. I loved the idea of going against all the rules in art to show a very strong vertical like that through the painting. It can resemble a Cross....and with it evoke some inner emotion and loneliness.

For this exhibition we concentrated on small 8x8 affordable artworks.

Alone with the Mountain

I was so pleased that everyone loved Aurora! Many people fell in love with the town through my blog! It is romantic in a special way as each house has a solitary aura about it. Look at this cheeky cottage with the turquoise veranda: It looks as if it stands there alone with the mountain behind it, although it is on a street in town! There is a West Coast chimney on the outside which means there will be a cosy inglenook for cooking inside the kitchen!

Here is tiny Aurora's role in history: In 1751 the Abby de la Caille arrived from France to measure the earth's meridian. He did his triangular measurement from a barn near Aurora using Strand Street in Cape Town and the mountains of Riebeek West as his other points of reference. Ooopsy, despite his accuracy the earth was found to be mmm....slightly oval! Two centuries later it was found that the mistake could be blamed on the magnetic pull of the the nearby mountains.

Now I can also feel that magnetic pull! For the next painting you will find me taking the 3 -looped pass to visit the top of Piketberg Mountain!