Brownies, Anybody?

There are quite a number of homes in Darling with the traditional attic with an outside staircase. I knew I had to paint one of them for the blogspot and also hoped I could stumble upon a good ‘attic story’. The old South African farmhouses with attics were the stuff of legends, because the older Afrikaner people kept their coffins in the attic ready for their burial one day. Not to waste such a strong container, they would keep their surplus dried peaches in it, until the coffin was needed.

My husband readily agreed when I decided to paint Simoné’s Restaurant with their outside staircase. I know why: he is absolutely addicted to coffee-and-dessert at Simone’s! So once he was settled in with his coffee and a soft-centered double chocolate browny swimming in thick warm chocolate sauce, I walked up to Simoné and asked her to tell me something about the history of the attic, only to hear that there was nothing at all, the house was less than 10 years old!

“Marie,” she said, “the attic is not even in use”. I felt a tremor there and then! A beautiful new vacant attic above this excellent and popular restaurant would be the perfect venue for my exhibition! On the spot it was organised. So, starting on 28th August and going through September all the paintings on this blogspot so far, will be exhibited at Simoné’s on Darling’s main street.

This was one of the nicest buildings I had to paint so far and I had 5-year old granddaughter Morgan as my assistent. She loved doing the feathery strokes for clouds and then patting them with her little fingers. After that she was very keen to help painting the ‘curly-whurly S’, but I squeezed out some bright colours and let her practice letters in her own book!