Country Gardens on the West Coast

The traditional style of a country garden is always bountiful, colourful and planted informally!

This was originally written by Christopher Lloyd in his book "The Cottage Garden" and further promoted by Gillian Rattray in a lovely South African book "In a Country Garden" which is illustrated in watercolours.

I painted two West Coast homes of neighbours last year, both homes which showed a profusion of foliage that is in harmony with the fynbos that surrounds the plots. Many indigenous plants are available at nurseries, so one can easily incorporate them. This is a wise decision as such plants are waterwise and can withstand periods of drought. Examples of such plants are the bright red Watsonia coccinea, white Zantedescia aethiopica (calla or arum lily) and lovely orange Salvia lanceolata.

Gardeners of course, also use artistic licence, so we love to incorporate lavender and daisies into our gardens and other natural looking plants that will blend in and not spread into the fynbos, as you will notice in my paintings!

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In Defence of Fynbos

Through more posts on this blog than I can remember, I have sung the praises of fynbos (fine and small-leaved shrub-lands which grow in poor soils). Yet not everyone is of the same sentiment. In our national Sunday newspaper (16 January 2011), a popular journalist listed fynbos (hopefully tongue-in-cheek) as "overrated ": "...heath and heather are found all over the world, but considered a religion in South Africa", she wrote. Many botanists will be able to counter-act this very unfortunate view of fynbos which may be taken to heart by lots of readers. I can only react with the knowledge I have.

Here on the West Coast, fynbos act as a stabiliser for loose rocks and also restrain the encrouchment of sand from the beach. It is the natural habitat of ground-nesting birds and harbours a complete eco-system where a stunning variety of birds, snakes, meerkat, voles, field mice and small buck are part of the endless cycle of survival. The fynbos forms part of the great and world-famous Cape Floral Kingdom. To bring in a commercial viewpoint, the spring flower show contributes greatly to the economy of the region.

In my painting of fynbos, I show a piece of rocky outcrop where people can hike along to explore the long walk from Kabeljoubank in the direction of Yzerfontein.

To end my defence of fynbos, I quote from " The Illustrated History of the Countryside" a book about Britain by Oliver Rackham (2003):

"In the darkest days of ericophobia, the voices of Gilbert White, John Clare, George Borrow and Thomas Hardy were public reminders of the glory and mystery and freedom of the heath. But few listened: people do not value heathland until they have lost nine-tenths of it."

I do love that word 'ericophobia'. All along our rural roads, extensive ploughing, developments and forestation are taking the place of fynbos........

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West Coast Wishes

This will be my last post of 2010. For me it was a lovely year with many West Coast paintings sold both locally and all over the world, thanks to the Internet.

To wish you well, I am using a framed effect I made in watercolours, containing our most popular images: the boats, the cottages, fisher folks, a gull and a delicious pot of mussels!

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Diamonds on the West Coast

Diamonds, like all other products, have been given to man to utilize and create jobs. If you are not into the romantic side of these blingy bits, consider that they are also very useful in industry because of their hardness and strength.

I found these lovely colourful diamond trawlers at Lambert's Bay, the best area for maritime diamond mining. This industry has only been commercially viable since the 1990's. Seabed crawlers can be remote controlled but mostly divers are needed. These divers, who can only work about six days per month because of our famous stormy waters, have to work in the cold of the Atlantic Ocean for up to 8 hours. When they spot diamond-bearing gravel on the seabed they direct the suction hoses towards it.

The gravel is then pumped onto sorting tables. When the boats return, the diamonds are taken ashore. What I loved about this scene was the hollow hoses floating on top the water, providing seating for hundreds of Cape Cormorants.

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Purple Ragwort (Senecio arenarius)

I am painting the last of the purple ragwort flowers of the season! Because I water my garden twice a week some of them survived a bit longer.

Ragwort make a wonderful display in springtime, colouring the fields around us to a purple landscape. The flowers are pretty but poisonous to humans and livestock as it is said to affect the liver. Yet my beloved voles, which I painted a few months ago, are vegetarians and find ragwort such a treat. It is just too cute to see the flowers in those little hand-like paws! I have found that if you move past a window or stir a curtain the voles are gone! They are extremely sensitive. Maybe the early morning sun blinded them a little this morning, so I stood behind the glass and got the photos I have been yearning for. I hope to invest in a telephoto lens for my camera, to catch some better shots in future. In the meantime I present Mr and Mrs Vole eating their purple ragwort breakfast.

I also paint these purple flowers to celebrate my brand-new purple blogspot : French Belles by Marie Theron.

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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 this 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 only a few meters from the ocean.

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Chincherinchees (Ornithogalum thyrsoides)

Enough about the exhibition, I say. It will be open until 21 st January 2011 and I will let you know what happens. Today with the end of the wildflower season in sight, I want to tell you about the flowers you probably know as "chinks". Summer is getting warmer and all over the fields they are drying off.

The Greeks, and some sources say the Romans, would describe something that was amazing, incredible and wonderful as "birds milk" which in translation would be ornis + gala. From there the scientific name Ornithogalum. Afrikaans speaking South Africans heard a ching sound when picking at the stems and that gave us the common name Chincherinchees.

You know by now that Kabeljoubank where I live is absolutely steeped in history and culture. Here the British Peer and her crew perished in 1896, and we still see pieces of their red bricks ballast, rounded by ocean movement to the size of pebbles. Here, also, if people will look where I direct them, the process of snoek drying in the seabreeze can be seen.

But this is the nicest Kabeljoubank story of all: Between the two world wars, tourists who had travelled to Cape Town by ocean liner or train, would sometimes in spring and early summer hire a horse cart and travel the distance to Kabeljoubank for a picnic. They admired the beautiful views, the bluest ocean, the fields of spring flowers. One of the sights they saw was the picking of chincherinchees (in bud form) to be exported to Covent Garden where they were sold, a popular flower which lasts for weeks in a vase.

Of course my vases at home have nothing of the sort, as all our flowers in the Cape Flower Kingdom are protected! To be admired, photographed, sketched, but never to be picked! The first image is my painting, the second the veld next to my studio, then a bunch I photographed at the annual Wild Flower Show and lastly a little macro photo I took. Do not forget to let me know if you have ever seen or grown "chinks"!

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A Slice of Life Exhibition

After all the anticipation to attend the opening, the day of week, the time of day and the great distance prevented me from attending the opening of the exhibition. Avril who owns the gallery wrote so well about it on the morning after that I am going to quote him here: " Difficult to describe unique events like these. Crazy, ridiculous, exciting, enjoyable, all at the same time. Maybe "memorable" is a fair description. Many, many guests and few serious problems. One of those events one has to attend to really appreciate.

Since the gallery opened for business on 20 September 2007 I always wanted to do a real "opening", where the paintings are "unveiled". And this was the golden opportunity to do it. Imagine the curtains coming down and 600 paintings becoming fully visible all at once. I enjoyed the exercise, and according to all accounts most guests did!

In my photos this week I show my works together, followed by all my seagull paintings.

Living here next to the coast, I can see a lot of individualism in the seagulls. The leaders, the lookouts, the extremely young and the old and overweight birds all represent themselves...Again I "humanize" them, which I cannot help. Look at the gull I was able to get very close to....he really thought the rope was a safeguard against an approaching human. Then there is the group who seems to wait for a signal from their leader, something like: On your marks, get set, GO!

Enjoy these photos!

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More and more Gannets!

By now I think everyone must realize that I cannot let go of the gannets of Lambert's Bay. Suddenly I see seabirds in my future as an artist: going into more and more detail and entering the world of Wildlife Art by painting the precious and protected birds of the West Coast.

The great exhibition of 630 works by 63 artists, called "A Slice of Life" opens this week in Somerset West. On the 10 wooden blocks I received, I used 4 for my gannets. I showed one piece last week, and here are the three others. You can see how they all look together in the first photo.

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The West Coast at Springtime

I have been working on 10 paintings for an exhibition and finished the last one yesterday! They are all West Coast themes and meant for an invited show of 63 artists each doing 10 paintings of the popular 8 x 8 size. "A SLICE of LIFE "Exhibition will show all 630 paintings on one gallery wall!

Before I start blogging and chatting about these completed works, I would love to show my favourite photos of the coastal flower displays not far from my home during Springtime.

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Gardening on the West Coast

In planning a West Coast garden, I decided to take my cue from the surrounding veld. There are no trees in the pristine fynbos, so I did not plant any. This is not a coast of waving palm trees and huge tall plants, and I often see people planting them because they love trees/want shade/want birds/need something tall as a focal point, or for whatever reason. But surely one would then attract the wrong sort of birds, because our Cape Robins, Francolins and Black Oystercatchers sleep on the ground or in low vegetation.

Another rule would be to have no flowers that will start spreading into the fynbos. Nasturtiums are a no-no! I plant so that there is always a great display of colour. This is a long narrow garden and I want colour as far as the eye can see. By not trimming and allowing plants to grow together there are never any weeds as there is no room for them. Because of harsh rainless summers you need plants that do not need a lot of water. We are planning to make some "green" plans this year to water the patch of lawn.

In the photos you will notice that I allow the wild pelargoniums, sorrel, watsonias, Livingstone daisies (bokbaai vygies), all types of aloes and ragwort to grow where they want to. I make no division between wild and cultivated plants.

My garden has been photographed by many people who can see it over the walls, and are thrilled by all the colour! This is a garden where I spend about 4 days working in a year, while the buffalo grass grows vertical and needs trimming about every third week only.

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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!

For tourists and photographers, visiting the gannets is a breathtaking experience, yet care must be taken while large stone buildings are erected. 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.

After commenting here, I recommend a visit to the amazing miniature gannet painting done by the inimitable Tracy Hall. Now that is lovely, don't you agree?

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The Gannet Colony

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They are up with the first light in the morning and the daily choir of thousands of decibels hit the morning air above Bird Island. I suppose each shouts out his own hunger and intentions for fishing, and with such a crowd, there may also be a lot of admonitions to little ones not to get lost! Speaking of that: it is amazing how they land back in their own space after flight and always know their own little black blobs from the surrounding chicks!

With creatures living so close to each other, there is apt to be some tension. Gannets relieve the tension by doing the neck-rubbing ceremony with the birds working on their nerves. It is not a mating ceremony. In this large painting, I have painted this beautiful and graceful movement. Well, here we have a lesson from the gannets: if a guy or lady grabs the parking spot we were already entering (!!!!), maybe we should shake hands or give them a little hug! See? the tension will be gone!

Further in this panorama, you will see the largish chicks, the hesitant flyers and the airborne ones. In the final and 5th post on this theme(which may only appear in ten day's time unless I get an internet connection where I am going) I will post the last of this series on the gannets of Lambert's Bay! The theme will be MAN and his relationship with the threatened birds.

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Fear of Flying?

This post comes to you from Pretoria where my West Coast exhibition takes place this week. The last week before leaving I painted enough gannets, photographed them and put them on disc. How easy it is to put your work in your purse nowadays. The same cannot be said of all the paintings we hauled up here!

The time watching the gannets from the bird hide on Bird Island at Lambert's Bay was one of the most exciting times of my life. One can never get enough of that lovely mass of soft yellow heads, interspersed with the black Pacman-like, feature-less baby gannets! Soon, however, I started focussing on the spectacle of their flying.

The soil where they trample around is very hard, and they have a strip that they use for taking off, with many bodies actually walking through it. So to find a clear few yards to run before rising from the ground is difficult. Again and again they try, lose courage or halt to avoid a wanderer in their way and go back to try again. Flap-flap goes the feet designed for swimming over the hard crusty earth. I promise you that an onlooker can become utterly nervous! The eventual take-off is not very smooth but quite faltering!

On the edges, where the rocks are, others peek over the precipice before throwing themselves into the air. There are akward moments when they almost hang in the air, trying to find the proper movements. As if my readers are not upset enough by this time, I also have to tell you that the landings on those enormous feet looks like a great plopping down! I was saddened but not surprised to read in Nelson's book on seabirds that some gannets can injure or kill themselves in flying accidents! Here, close to the earth they have their worst close shaves with danger.

But of course, what takes place in the first moments of alighting is absolutely forgotten the moment they stretch out in the air, and form a single line from beak to tail, while the wings unfold to an enormous, finely tipped wingspan. Here are the most gracious and effective of flyers who are able to divebomb the sea at such a speed that it carries them down a full ten meters to a supply of fish who never saw it coming! Yeah, for the gannets, can you feel the relief and freedom of those flyers as they do the auronautical tricks they were born for.

Working here on a granddaughters's computer, my images won't download from that disc. I will post and try to rectify the matter soon.

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Meet the Gannets

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You don't like crowds and all those loud holiday entertainments? The answer to avoiding all that is to drive North all along the unspoiled West Coast. As my blog is now stretching to distant places we need to stay overnight at our destinations. So off we went to spend a weekend at my favourite place, Lambert's Bay. As we arrived, the whole area spelt out the theme of quiet restfulness. A leasurely meal of one big crayfish with lovely Cape wine dealt with Friday evening.

With what excitement I crossed the foot bridge to Bird Island the next morning! There is a very modern but tastefully built hide at the end of the pathway. "We have 24,000 gannets here" a friendly lady told us. Apparently these precious birds are counted continuously. I spent hours observing them from the hide and will have much to tell (and paint) over the next few posts.

There is a strange story playing out in this painting! The island is also the home of Cape fur seals, introduced to the area in 1985. These fur seals, as we know, have had a hard time in the past and are now furiously protected. And in Lambert's Bay it is not the cats and dogs fighting but the gannet lovers and the seal lovers. Seals eat gannet eggs and chicks, and may lead to dwindling numbers of gannets.

But the seals have a right of living space too. The solution at the moment is but a simple plan. The seals are carefully watched and chased away by shouting at them if they go near eggs or chicks, and here you see it: a man keeps watch from a boat rowed by his team-mate, and the gannets can breed in peace. Can you see them in my third image?

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Delight in the Detail

The words 'informal' and 'relaxed' sum up the style of the West Coast. I am taking you to a restaurant on the beach at Paternoster, so please leave all suits and high heels behind! We can take a long stroll on the beach to watch the colourful fishing boats coming in, photograph the seagulls and then step up to Voorstrandt Restaurant, hardly shaking the sand from our feet, and find ourselves an outside seat with sea views. The restaurant is situated in an antique tin fisherman's cottage more than a hundred years old.

I was so thrilled when I first saw the welcoming wall in the entrance on the street side of the building. Against the 'heritage green' corrugated wall there is a piece of wood from a real shipwreck. The flaked red paint forms the perfect contrast to the building. I also loved the old bottles that was picked up among the flotsam at some stage, and the buoys and ropes! A very large blackboard holds a daily message for visitors. In painting this scene, the old wood got the most attention! In my art box I have a triangularshaped palette knife that got its first job here in scraping on texture, and it worked perfectly!

I almost forgot! What shall we eat? I am in search of the perfectly grilled mullet (harders), my favourite! As you are not from here, I suggest a more 'tame' fish dish, some yellowtail with butternut, creamed spinach and a few chips? Sounds good? Let's order!

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An article about me

An article about me was published in SA ART TIMES AUGUST 2010, and is called MARIE THERON The Real West Coast:

THE WATERCOLOUR YEARS: Her first love was watercolours and she spent most of the eighties and nineties exhibiting and demonstrating the medium, designing stationery and doing book and botanical illustration. Lecturing at Bellville Art Centre, Constantia and the Western Cape countryside, hundreds of students benefitted from her watercolour courses.

MIDDLE PERIOD: Marie retired from teaching and entered a hectic period doing large colourful acrylics. From 2001 to 2004 she held several solo exhibitions, for instance in Budapest with sales to the South African and Canadian embassies and one painting ending up in the collection of President …….of Croatia. It was followed by an exhibition “ The Timeless Charm of Croatia” which opened in The Old Cape Town House, then moved to Sandton Art Gallery and The Croatian Embassy in Pretoria. The exhibition was a sell-out with the artist retaining 4 paintings for her own collection. It also led to commissions from the Croatian first secretary for his new Embassy post in Toronto. In 2005 The Pretoria Art Association commissioned paintings from 20 artist throughout Africa for a world touring exhibition “The Challenge of the Tie” where the role of Croatia as home of the tie was celebrated .Marie’s painting “Sister Power” now hangs in the permanent collection of Galleria Cravatica in Zagreb.

THE REAL WEST COAST: A profound change took place when Marie settled at the seaside on the lovely West Coast. So –called “West Coast Art” lacks in sincerity and makes use of stagnant little make-believe scenes of boats and cottages. It is the artist’s most passionate ambition to put this right. She visits and paints throughout the region and posts both paintings and history of the West Coast on her very popular and widely read blog, ARTIST MARIE THERON CHRONICLES THE WEST COAST OF SOUTH AFRICA. All the images used in this profile are from her West Coast blog.

This article gave me a lot of joy. The magazine is unfortunately difficult to get on the normal circuit of book shops and news agencies. A few of my friends could get hold of a copy at art galleries or larger city stores. It can be read online in pdf format for a short period only.

I am often asked about that painting in Zagreb called "Sister Power." As you can read above, it resides in the Acedemia Cravatica. Surely, in Croatia, they are extremely proud of having given birth to the tie. Imagine paying some South African and other artists to give their interpretation of a tie! Go to the gallery's fan page on Facebook and see the fun festivals and mile-long ties, etc!In my painting I used the tie as a token of power and painted ties around the necks of young African girls, symbolizing the future of women in Africa.

After leaving your comments, here are some links:

Read my article online pages 32 and 33 during August 2010 only

Visit Academia Cravatica on the Facebook pages and Internet

You can see "Sister Power" here

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All quiet here in the mist!

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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 by. 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 here, and there is some snazzy music too!

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