Four Seagull Paintings

Seagull by West Coast Artist Marie Theron, part of a commissioned set of four.
 8x8 inches (250mm x 250mm

Where I live, of course, we see seagulls all the time. It is not a picnic area or even a well-known beach, so the seagulls never misbehave. When dark thunder is on its way, like it often has been for months, the seagulls would fly circles over my roof. But they have never scavenged for food at anyone's home. The turbulent waters knock mussels unconscious against the rocks and that is where the gulls feed. I have just read a wonderful article about the things that make seagulls adorable, their beauty, functional built,  and their sound. You can read the article by Stephan Moss here .

I have just completed this commission of 4 works to hang in a kitchen at a seaside home. My favourite composition for a seagull is the "half-portrait" where the bird peeks in from the bottom of the canvas. The birds look plain, but my hand took some strain from doing the detail and I rested it in a brace afterwards. Here is the full set:

Commissioned set of Seagull Paintings by West Coast Artist Marie Theron
250mm x 250mm, 8 x 8 inches oil on canvas.

My daughter, Susan lives near Melkbosstrand, a beach a little closer to Cape Town, and she is my guest photographer today. Yes, it is the ever-present Table Mountain in the background!

Hello, Velddrif

Jetties at Velddrif 2012  30x14 inches Oil on canvas SOLD

Velddrif is probably one of the smallest towns on the West Coast. Although it lies on the beautiful Berg River, it has never been developed into a resort. Many, many times, I send up this prayer of thanks that Velddrif is undeveloped and the river untouched by fancy marinas! Tour the country and there are surely a lot of beauty in the Waterfront, Sedgefield and Knysna developments, those picture-pretty resorts! Those places are easy on the eye and has a vibe caused by lots of happy people moving around, so I am not shooting it down. But......

But for me, this is the place where one feels alive. I walk on that dusty dirt road called Bokkom Lane, and breath in the smelly little fish. I look at the bokkoms, some still a glistening silver colour, others already dried and golden and I read a people's history in them. I stroll around admiring the cunning of the seagulls, grinning at the names on the "bakkies", as the little boats are called. I may sit on a veranda and sip something, but soon I would be clambering over unsteady little jetties again. Hungry? Surely for me there is only one thing to eat at Velddrif: "grilled harders", the same little fish that are used for bokkoms! I miss how my husband used to go to the kitchen, meet the cook, and tell him how to prepare my harders.

The painting was made more than a year ago, in happy times next to the river and later in the studio at home. I think I have captured the water well here. I did not like my painting then. With my husband so ill there was not much that I liked about my art, and it was truly buried beneath a pile of stuff for about 15 months. But as is goes with clients, they ignore the wall displays and would rather scratch around in my studio. So this painting was rediscovered and sold. I must go down to Velddrif again.

Karen Van Niekerk, one of the early risers in Velddrif and a professional photograper, took the wonderful images of the river.

 The first heading on the right side of my blog is: Search this blog. There you can type in "Velddrif "or "Berg River" or "Bokkom Lane" if you want to read my older posts on this theme and see previous Velddrif paintings.

Lonely Looking Sky

Lonely lookin sky
lonely sky, lonely looking sky
and bein' lonely
makes you wonder why
makes you wonder why
lonely looking sky
lonely looking sky
lonely looking sky

Lonely looking night
lonely night, lonely looking night
and bein' lonely
never made it right
never made it right
lonely looking night
lonely looking night
lonely looking night

I mentioned Jonathan Livingston Seagull as the source of my title "Facts of Flight" for my three-part series of paintings. The series are finished and I will show the past painting in my next post. Doing these paintings, I am forever studying the shapes of seagulls. As it goes in nature, there are sometimes hundreds of gulls coming over one after the other a few meters from home. At other times, I have to walk a mile or two to stalk a single bird!

This morning I found some good examples of distant birds among my photos, and I hope you liked to see them accompanied by the lovely lyrics of Neil Diamond!

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!

Facts of Flight # 1

It seems nowadays that I cannot get enough of seagulls. I got up this morning at 5 to start planning some canvasses. Who me? Yup! I also went down to the rocks two nights ago to see them returning to their rocks. Seagulls leave in the late afternoon to drink water from a fresh source, such as the dams and rivers a few miles inland. On returning, their movements are at the most gracious as they glide in slowly towards their coming slumber. The guys I photographed in the sunset scene were still keen to dive down into the waves for morsels brought in by the strong tide, a little bedtime snack, I suppose!

The painting is somewhat similar to the one in the post about the dolosse. I love the juxtaposition of man-made boats, homes and dolosse with natural elements like rocks, water, clouds and birds. Painting size is 4oo mm x 4oo mm (15.7 " x 15.7 ") Oil on cotton wraparound canvas.

The Fiscal Shrike

I took a photo of the lovely program for the Slice of Life Exhibition. How neat the gallery looks! This show with it's mass of even-sized paintings will run until the 21st of January 2011. I hope to receive some news about my set of birds! I could have painted 5 gannets and 5 of seagulls, but am so fond of sets of four, that I filled the remaining two blocks with something different. So here is the image of my little shrike.

As you know, there are no trees here on the West C0ast, so all the small birds around here perch themselves on top of the bushes that we call "fynbos". The fiscal shrike is such a cute round little creature as he scans the world all around for insects. I have never came upon a fiscal shrike larder here, but as a child we had a barbed wire fence and my dad would call us every time he found a larder....oh my, what a grizzly experience that was for a little girl!!! But I never missed a chance to see crickets, worms and grasshoppers impaled on pieces of barbed wire, left there to dry in the breeze like our fisherman do with the snoek and bokkoms!

Do you know the Fiscal Shrike? It lives all over our country, but this little one was sitting only a few meters from the ocean.

We are the Custodians of Nature

"Man, the Hero" is sitting on his pedestal. How big is his task to reign over the earth, yet he looks quite smug and loves to be admired! As consumers we are so totally responsible for the balance in our world. Of course we may use certain things, but how much can we safely claim for ourselves? As consumers and travellers we need the oil that is transported in huge amounts over the oceans. How can it be done more safely without spoiling our beautiful planet? We all know how a great spill can effect our birds!

We have little control over the harvesting of hundreds of thousands of seabird eggs yearly in societies where it is the main source of protein for humans. Closer to home, cats, with the blessing of their vets, insist on their favourite brands of tinned food, while at the fish factories fleets of boats are going out to trawl the oceans for the tons of fish needed to be processed as pet food for the supermarket shelves, leaving less for our seabirds!

For tourists and photographers, visiting the gannets is a breathtaking experience, yet care must be taken while large stone buildings are erected for people to watch birds from. Busy, noisy and dusty human activities can be stressful for the birds indeed. Tourism provides the funds needed for caring and monitoring the birds, so we hope that the pros outweigh the cons when we build these bird hides! The habits of the birds can be carefully monitored from here, but sometimes selected birds will have to carry a ring with data inscribed in it. Scientists have noticed that the ringing of a gannet can put the pair off breeding for a whole season!

My big-headed little man on his pedestal! I hope he can keep the balance! (The cartoon was done in great haste and from the imagination as I had to leave the West Coast for my solo exhibition in Pretoria.) I would love to hear your thoughts on this sensitive topic.

Yzerfontein Vignette

From the highway, you go down to Yzerfontein waterfront, down, down, past the lime kilns (registered National Monuments), past the small CBD and the large 70's era houses. And there it is: one of the most beautiful stretches of water on the coast! The beach meanders on and on for many kilometers in both directions. Should you decide to walk this coastline from the harbour in the direction of Cape Town, you will see millions of birds, beaches with rocks for anglers, waves for surfers and a feast for the eyes for all. In the ocean you will notice the pretty guano encrusted little mound, aptly called Meeurots (Gull Rock), where seagulls and cormorants dry their wings after fishing. There is also a very close view of Dassen-eiland where penguins live and breed.

In this view we look back at the town. Man-made breakwater rocks are added to the large natural rocks to build a safe landing passage for returning fishing boats. Alert gulls on their cluster of rocks keep an eye on the returning yield and form a frame for the scene behind them, a composition that helped me to overcome the awkward square form of the canvas.

Bird's Eye View of Cottages

The best things in life are free, they say, and looking at seagulls are absolutely the best! We who live by the sea can only see the animals up North at great cost. Looking for the Big Five, the Little Five and the Ugly Five can cost a fortune.

But lets see what we have here: these gracious white birds, day after day! I love them when the ants are out and they circle the house to catch them in midflight. I love them when heavy waves beat tiny sea creatures unconscious, and they do their daring dives into the turmoil to find the food. But the nicest time is the day after New Year, the traditional picnic day for the local people. Then these scavengers glide in lazily and low, they come from everywhere, in no haste and enjoying the scenery from up above. On that day you can lie on your back pointing the camera skywards and take hundreds of photographs. I have painted this picture as a gift some years ago. In it I show the proper 'bird's eye view' of the cottages.