Scratchboards

Ground Hornbill

I just love seeing these big birds in the wild.  Again we found this one early one morning,  He was with a family group, but the others stayed back out of camera range.

Kudu Bull

Rhino mum with calf

We were lucky enough to see these in the wild, but with the way poaching is going in this country I have to wonder if our grandchildren will ever get to see these wonderful animals in this setting.  Makes me very sad to see these wonderful animals being butchered the way they are just to pander to man's greed - I just wish that anyone who uses the end product in any form suffers somehow as badly as these animals are suffering.

Leopard

We came across this leopard early one morning and she just stood like this and watched us for what seemed like forever, but in reality was only a minute or two.
Pastel on paper, 40cm x 30 cm

This is a pastel of  a herd of elephants crossing the Luangwa River in Zambia.  It was the dry season and the river was evaporating rapidly - and already the hippo were getting very territorial and fighting over the deeper pools that were left.

It was late in the afternoon and we were driving back to camp, when we spotted this cheetah.  He was making his way to deeper cover, and the setting sun was backlighting him a bit. 
Oil on board 50cm x 33cm

 

dp11

 

dp12

 

dp13

 

a few more daily paintings

 

CHEETAH STUDY

 

 

Watercolour 50cm x 35cm

 



DAILY PAINTINGS

 

Bush Road - 30cm x 21cm

 

River view - 30cm x 21cm

 

Bush road 30cm x 21cm

As part of my development I decided that I would try to do a daily painting.  These paintings are only in 2 sizes, 30cm x 21cm and 20cm x 14cm - I have purposely kept them small and I allow myself the maximum of 1 hour from start to finish.  One of the reasons for this is I tend to get hooked up in detail, and whilst I admire photorealism I want people to know that they are looking at a painting and not a photo.  I also chose to do this with landscapes because as soon as I put an animal into the picture I tighten up again.  Maybe in time I will manage to keep the flow with the animals.

These 3 little paintings are all pastel that are started with a wet under-painting.

I would appreciate any comments or feedback from you, please just e mail me.

I am back!!!

Hello everyone, I see I have posted nothing on my blog for over a year, but all I can say in my defence is that it has not been a good year for me regarding my art.  As I said before we moved to Johannesburg, and after spending 21 years in the "bush" in Botswana arriving in Joburg was just a visual overload.  I signed up for courses, workshops and went to loads of galleries and then suffered from visual overload.  Somewhere along the way I lost Jenny and became a clone of whichever course I was on :(  And I hated the work that I was producing.  So I sat myself down and tried to rediscover me - what did I want to paint, and which was the way forward.  So after lots of hard work I think I am eventually back on my own road and can continue my journey. 
But there was a valuable lesson in there for me to learn, and that was after years of working on my own and slowly taking one small step at a time, I definitely was like a kid in a candy store who did not know what flavour she wanted.  And that I had to be careful with what courses I went on - they are great for learning skills, but that is all they are, great aids in developing YOU!!
So on I go, and will be posting some new paintings that I have done recently - and I hope that you like the new path my journey is taking me on.