And now for South African Pumpkins

For all my friends in the States who are painting and displaying and eating pumpkin at this time of the year, I show a still life with everyday South African pumpkins.

You do not want to know what Spring has turned into as the rain pours down and the wind whips up the ocean outside my studio window!

While I am waiting to continue travelling the West Coast and paint a waving wheatfield, I refer back to my previous blog. I have used my own window and my own doll in the picture, and added a bowl of miniature American pumpkins which I photographed on my daughter's Thanksgiving table in 2000 in Texas. When I was there, I truly admired the lovely pumpkins displayed on lawns and window-sills all over American towns, some of them enormous, very orange, very round orbs!

Our pumpkins are very rough-looking, I hope you like them too!

A waving wheatfield coming up soon! (thinking positively about the weather!)

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An Autumn Painting in a Spring Garden

I have been housebound because of the weather. The plan was to paint a large canvas with a rich, waving sunny wheatfield which will continue the story of Malmesbury. But for the last 96 hours it has been raining and pouring. It started with storms of the worst kind when I often thought that the sea was entering the house. Now it is just an ongoing rain, the type that the fields and gardens surely need before the scorching summer arrives.

To keep the blog running, I decided to show you my painting, completed three weeks ago, for an Autunm theme competition that was launched in California, the home of Facebook, where of course, they celebrate the colours of Autumn at the moment. In honour of the contrast of seasons between the Northern hemisphere and the Cape, I photographed the painting in my Spring garden some weeks ago.

Hoping to paint the wheatfields soon!

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