More Children Painted on Blue Canvas by South African Impressionist Marie Theron

I continued with this set of tiny canvasses in which I tried to capture the gentle nature of children. Their feet, hands and body language are the things that make up a child for me. I would therefore never portray facial features as it would distract attention from the child's action. Once again, my grandchildren around the age of three made the perfect models. #impressionist #southafricanimpressionist

Sea, Sun and Sand

Acrylic on Canvas by South African Impressionist Marie Theron

W: 100mm x H: 100mm x D: 5mm
6" x 6"

This work is unframed

Price

R709 or US$69

May I Touch You?

Acrylic on Canvas by South African Impressionist Marie Theron

W: 100mm x H: 100mm x D: 15mm
6" x 6"

This work is unframed

Price

R709 or US$69

View or Buy or read my CV HERE

Girl with a Cat I

Acrylic on Canvas by South African Impressionist Marie Theron

W: 100mm x H: 100mm x D: 15mm
6" x 6"

This work is unframed

Price

R709 or US$69

It can be purchased HERE

"Moment" by South African Impressionist Marie Theron

Although I admire simplicity in art, and those cool detached figures, I find that as soon as I start planning a new painting, a strong narrative comes through. Here, in a sunny garden with a glimpse of the ocean, a boy and his Mom has a sweet moment together.

8' x 8'  (200mm x 200mm)

Acrylic on Wrapped Canvas

(sides were left white)

US$ 163

(R 1667)

To View or Buy

The West Coast and I

Ten years ago we moved to the West Coast to live close to the ocean. How close? Friends who have seen photos of my home, will know! The photos in this post were taken 80  meters from where I live by friend and photographer Mary Ann Bosch, who absolutely loves the West Coast too. 

In May last year, I lost my husband and  although I bravely declared that I would remain here forever, I slowly started to identify my new role. So I am making a shift to warm Natal where we have lived before, and where my twin granddaughters are.   I will not make any move in haste. I was never a person to be hurried along, but yes, I am gradually taking leave and getting new plans together. I keep a wide space in my heart for the West Coast and for the lovely memories we have collected.

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Low Tide in Zanzibar

"Kelp Gathering" by Artists of Africa Artist Marie Theron
508mm x 508mm oil on cotton wrapped canvas
$US 489

Continuing my African paintings: Do you know the West Coast where I stay? Low tide, even while being called "low" is still a dangerous phenomenon and the water will throw you onto the rocks, should you dare to enter the sea. I love my noisy home, where nights are never quiet and the large waves can be heard day and night. Of course, travelling can be so refreshing, and we were thrilled with the low, low tide at Zanzibar. You can wade in for miles to sit in the water, find a dhow, chat to locals and scrunch up your eyes because the light is so blindingly bright.

Here we observed the activity of seaweed harvesting by the Masaai women. By driving sticks into the low areas of the sea, traps are formed where the seaweed can easily be collected. Bucketfuls of the green stuff are then taken to the beach to be hung out to dry. Dry seaweed is exported to China where it is boiled into soap and shampoo.

In my painting "Kelp Harvesting", I have tried to show the endless stretch of low tide, and the blinding light that etches out the figures of workers. I did not take enough photos while I was there, but I treasure these few photos and hope you like them too. They really portray the exact mood on that tranquil island.

To view the buying guide to this painting, click HERE

The Small Things

Guest Artist #2 Lurina Fourie

"For the person for whom small things do not exist, the great is not great" - Jose Ortega y Gasset" This short quote sums up what we are trying to convey with today's post.

I am truly swamped with work and fiercely working for two or three exhibitions which do not have the West Coast theme. But while I am otherwise occupied, there are many talented artists and photographers to keep my blog up and running and I love searching them out and inviting them!

Lurina Fourie of Lurina Fourie Professional Photography Services, also lives in Velddrif on the Berg River. Lurina zooms in on the amazing detail one finds on the beach and river bank. It was difficult to choose just a few of her photos for this post!

Bluebottles in their true colours...Lurina admired the rim
that looked like embroidery stitching

Everybody loves sea anemone shells, but what a find
 was this with hundreds of them stranded after red tide

A moment only the very patient beach dweller will see:
 Spring flowers, the ocean and a pink heart in the clouds

A wave after red tide, magnificent in its anger and beauty !

An injured young cormorant at Laaiplek, shouting at the curious photographer. Lurina
was happy when he was restored to health and flew off

Millions of tiny jewel-like stones form our West Coast
 sand,  how inviting is this sunny image. I can feel that peace

Beautifully captured, I could not resist this photo that says so much about our beaches
where there is space and you can really breathe

Thank you Lurina! Unforgettable work! Please click on her images enlarge.

Surprise Animal Friendship at Paternoster

I find that my travels has no particular pattern or order. On this day I was on my way to Hopefield, when there was time for a round trip. Once again, like often before, the choice was Paternoster. When I am in Paternoster, I can never settle to lunch without having taken a walk on the vast beach.

On this occassion the rewards were enormous..... When photographing gulls, I suddenly noticed a strange form emerging from the ocean. It was a friendly-looking seal! He joined the birds and here in the photo it seems as if one gull is doing a very special flying performance for the others gathering there! If you love unusual animal friendships you can buy this as a card on RebBubble. It is called :"At the Air Show"!

My painting shows another Paternoster scene that is now available at Perels & Pampoene Gallery in Hopefield.

Facts of Flight # 2, Paternoster

The three-part series which I started posting, were commissioned for the opening of a new gallery in the West Coast town of Hopefield. We'll be sleeping in a quaint B&B to be able to attend. Of course I will collect material for my blog too!

In the story of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, it is said that seagulls never think about "the facts of flight"! Flight, graceful as it seems, comes automatically to the gulls, as their only concern in life is FOOD! That gave me the idea for the titles for this three-part series. This second painting shows the beach at Paternoster.

I am painting as hard as ever before! Having passed my 68th birthday made me feel that I should go faster! But the Internet has slowed down, I think it is due to the many users here in the outpost where we live. 25 Homes were allowed ADSL in the beginning. Now , without any improvements to the system there must be at least 150 people using it. I battle to visit blogs, and to comment I often get time-outs. One day we will catch up on the 21st century! This is just to say I still love all your interesting blogs!

A Demo in Darling

We had Museum Day in Darling on Saturday, and I spent the morning demonstrating oil painting. I only had two days' warning so had little time to prepare. In my studio was a large seascape where the clouds and foreground had a rough underpainting in acrylics. It was done on a day when I wanted to put down a cold sky before I forgot what it looked like.

Behind my counter in the museum I followed the acrylic cloud shapes with oil paint, softening the edges. I showed how clouds were shaded with darker and lighter shades and how some sky colour had to be blended into the edges. I then painted the waves and used a type of very light calligraphy stroke to add lots of white foam edges to them. The rocks were then painted using only raw umber, ultramarine blue and white.

During the many years that I taught art, I have always tried to have some moments of tension to make my demo interesting. So, dipping my brush into the dirty brown colour of the rocks, I approached the wet completed sky. It took a few moments to squizzle in the seagulls and highlight them with white, but I could sense how people held their breaths as it was so easy to spoil the surface of my sky at that moment. Long hours on my feet, that I will not repeat soon, but it was wonderful to experience the company and the intelligent questions put to me by very young kids! Do children just get cleverer or what?

Cold Water, Cold Sky

Winter arrived so suddenly that I have stopped going to !Khwa Ttu until we have warmer weather again. This is what the ocean is looking like at the moment. Every day of my life I can just go outdoors and stare at it, but from one day to the next, it never looks the same.

I hope you can see the tranquil pool in the foreground where the water meets the beach.

The Restless Ocean - completed

This is the first painting that really gave me heart palpitations. It is both restless and restful! I drag it from room to room in my house. In some areas it looks far too bright, too turquoise, and in a different location it looks serene and calm!

For the last couple of years, I have taken the sea for granted, because every window on two sides of the house have a view. Now, I cannot pass a window without really staring. Since yesterday I have picked up a lot of detail that is NOT in this painting, but will be in the next. For instance: the white foam on the summit of the wave has a shadow of its own, like snow, it is not just white. Also, there is green in the large waves, not my soft peppermint whisper of a colour, but a ferocious darkish green. There is so much to learn!

These photos show the completed painting 1000mm x 750mm. I include some details in the post too, because the seagulls lifting up from the rocky outcrop was such a delightful detail, I had to do it well. There is variation in the colours of the photos too: too much blue sky when I shot them. Our best photos are taken on overcast days.

Work in Progress

I have started a large painting of 760mm x 1000mm. The fearsome white canvas becomes quite tame as soon as it is covered with the first layer of paint! You work different muscles with the broad sweeps of the brush, though, and my upper arm is feeling somewhat stiff at the moment.

As a theme, I decided to do a larger version of my first painting of the year, so this is once again a view of the ocean close to home. The sky looks very serene and has a lot of areal perspective, so I am satisfied with that. But the waves are much too restless. I will not even touch the rocks or birds before this ocean starts "behaving"!

The second photo shows my studio with my work triangle formed with an old table and an old yellow-wood desk.

All quiet here in the mist!

This is my third post in which I will try to portray the tranquility and quiet simplicity of life on the West Coast. This scene is very close to home now. The plain hedge made of saplings form the only fence between our home and the wilder parts of the reserve.

A little sparrow passed by on a misty morning and rested on the fence for a moment. My guest photographer, Jon Ivins, captured the image on camera and I used several techniques to portray it. This included very wet paint on a thin wet layer of white acrylic paint, wet-on-wet painting, and some scratching out. The woody rails and the sparrow were painted with dry undiluted acrylics.

The other photos were taken close to my home. Aren't they super? Jon is a professional photographer who covers great sporting events, but his food photos may also make your mouth water on the wall of a fast food place! Or else, he aims at nature, in all it's beauty, or even go underwater to show a paddling event from another angle. I think I will disclose that he is also my son-in-law! You can visit the wonderful world of JON IVINS at www. jonivins.com.

Cape Columbine Lighthouse

The Cape Columbine Lighthouse is on the South side of Paternoster where it is built high on Castle Rock in a nature reserve. The rewards from spices and porcelain from the East must have outweighed the dangers for many merchant ships from Europe. How else would they sail along the treacherous West Coast of the Cape with its offshore reefs, knowing that they could easily share the watery grave of in excess of 200 ships?

This very attractive lighthouse is unusual in shape as it was built in the popular Art Deco style of the 1930's. It was the last manned lighthouse in South Africa and was a sensation because of its flashing lamp that replaced earlier oil- and- wick systems. It is visible for 32 nautical miles and the safety of current-day ships is also assured by radio signals and a foghorn.

I finished this scene some days ago. I added these close-up seagulls to the composition. But now I am somewhat puzzled and doubtful....can such a scene where the artist is supposed to be on ground level, but a bird's eye view prevails, really exist? Nevertheless, we will let it pass!

As I write this last paragraph prior to having my blog printed, I have to marvel at how difficult it is for an artist to appreciate a recently- finished painting. Now I am able to call this work successful! It was featured many times on RedBubble where it is available as a card or print!

After the Rain

There is so much to see here at the seaside after heavy rains. I always go down to observe those enormous waves, heavy with water after the previous day's deluge. This little guy is sitting here like a statue. Shall we try to guess his thoughts?

Maybe he is thinking of NATURE, the immense power of the storming waves. He can watch the seagulls diving down for all the "fast food" like "storm-crushed mussels". He can watch that brown mass in the water which is kelp that has been uprooted and will soon be thrown out on the pebbles to rot. He can count the waves and wait for every 7th one, which is always the big one!

He can also consider HISTORY! This exact spot claimed The British Peer in 1896. (Wikepedia made one mistake. It was not at Saldanha but at Kabeljoubank where it wrecked!) The ship's ballast consisted of small red and yellow Victorian facebricks. Nowadays, when somebody collects pebbles and shells they will find the completely rounded "brick pebbles" as a reminder of that large wreck. The boy may also think sad thoughts of family tragedy. I once met an older couple sitting here, who said that their son had an accident in a little boat here. This, unfortunately is something that can take place on the West Coast!

But, knowing boys, I think it is GEOGRAPHY on his mind, of leaving one day for places far away. Ask a local person what you will find over the water and they answer "England". The English arrived along these shores when they attacked the country in the beginning and again at the end of the nineteenth century, so maybe that planted the idea. (But if our boy travels as the crow flies he will reach not Britain, but Uruguay!)

After the rock painting, I remained in the mood for subjects of limited colour, so I will search for one of our local "wildlife", a Cape franklin, vole, mongoose or tortoise to paint next. The colours waiting on my palette are black, white, yellow ocre, Indian red and the one I can never do without: Prussian Blue.