Meet Me at the Mantis Mall

There is something about Darling! If you enter the little town and see the quite drab main road running through, you will realise that all Darling's treasures will have to be hunted down. It will be worth it! In many of the restored Victorian cottages with their olde English gardens a guest house, restaurant or business can be found, and I am going to paint you many little vignettes Nr 12 Long Street houses an art gallery where my paintings are sold. It is cheekily named The Darling Art Supermarket, although it consists of one large room (and no trolleys). This is part of the spunk I enjoy about Darling. So when a friend said to me:"Meet me at the Man

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At Groote Post

If there is a screw missing, or brakes or whatever, do not fear! This one-horse-cart is going nowhere! The scariest part for an artist, was finding halfway through the painting that the wheels did not match and were not even of the same size! Groote Post has had so much written about it, for instance that it used to be a central post for mail deliveries from Cape Town to Saldanha. Long before the running of ultra-marathons became an exact science, runners would run the 60 kilometers from Cape Town carrying the mail. I am still painting scenes along that little dirt road to Darling and have at last reached this farm that is now a producer of the fin

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Wildemalva (Pelargonium cucullatum)

The West Coast had its first winter rains, and 9000 species of flowering plants are gearing up for spring which is almost four months away. Even before Nature breaths the word 'spring', the wild geraniums burst into flower. I made this very fast and impressionistic painting to show the abundant foliage and the loose clusters of flowers bearing toward the light.We love our little SASOL field guide to fynbos of Southern Africa, and I am going to use their descriptions to add to my own. This flowering plant is one of the parents of the Regal pelargonium hybrids. The leaves contain essential oils that are extracted and used in traditional medicines to tre

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The Chimney and the Tree

I was determined to find everything interesting there is to paint in my immediate vicinity before exploring the rest of the West Coast. On the farm road close by I stumbled upon this window-less cottage with a rusted, moss covered roof. I saw what looked like a firmly locked little door and the field grasses in front of the cottage was short. Can we deduct from these facts that the place is still lived in? No cat, no chickens?The house is dwarfed by the large tree, ensuring coolness in summer, especially as there are no windows (a few hidden on the other side, perhaps?). I was also very impressed by the proper West Coast chimney. We need our imaginati

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Classic Dignity

We always have a soft spot and a warm heart for Cape Dutch homes: the regal imposing facades with the gables, the blindingly white lime-washed walls and the very thickness of the walls! The gables in our architecture also served a practical purpose: if the thatch caught fire, the gable would prevent burning debris from blocking the door!This is the main section of the Bokbaai homestead, a little worse for the wear, as she is not lived in, yet with dignity intact. We can try to imagine her a few hundred years ago. This was not a weekend hideaway or holiday house like those in Newport, Rhode Island. This was the homestead of a working farm, as the Cape

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O, Look! There is the Mountain!

Table Mountain is truly visible from almost anywhere in the Cape and its surroundings. On the West Coast, where it is flat, you can be in a friend's house, a restaurant or even my own studio and see a bit of it. You can drive from Malmesbury, Mamre or Melkbosstrand and there will suddenly be a breathtaking view of it. But we never tire of this marvel and will always exclaim: O look! There is the Mountain!I am painting the main house at Bokbaai, a National Monument, and will post it soon. But I am first taking you around the back to the land end of the property. Climbing the slope behind the house, I saw a West Coast chimney and walked towards it. Ther

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Lonely, lonely

As the crow flies, I am only 8 kilometers from Bokbaai. Not by road though! All the soil around here is pure loose damp sand, thus the road becomes a challenge of driving on both left wheels, then sort of jump over the ridge and drive on both right wheels, all at high speed. Did I mention the rain?When the road comes to an end you start walking over a small hill before getting the first glimpse of the house, over 300 years old and vacant. I hope I can express in my painting the total forlorn-ness of this first impression of a once majestic homestead. It lies a few meters above a little bay, which on this particular day was as grey as the sky, as grey

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