A new site

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Visit my gallery

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SJQ Watercolour

This is the site I launched at my exhibition at the end of 2009

Quite how the two sites will interrelate is still under consideration

Basie se pa se huis

On Friday morning I had taken the dirt road from Garies, over Studer’s Pass, into the Rooiberg mountains.  A farmer was moving a herd of Afrikaaner cattle up the road so I slowly drove through them till the last were behind me.  Just over the top of the pass I came to a small farmhouse in a beautiful valley below a peak that I later learnt was called “Weeskind” which means “Orphan”, because it stands alone.   I sat next to the road and painted the farm and the peak.  While I was working the farmer drove past and waved.   He was working at his gate when some other farmer drove past and I heard him referring to me as “..daardie donder ..” I am not sure how to translate “donder” but it is definitely not polite.  Heh heh, anyway -so not everyone in the valley is light and music.   Here is the painting:

Later that I day after I had finished the painting at Koornkloof I travelled some really bad roads and then set off on my return to Garies where I wanted to fill up before heading back towards Cape Town.  On the way my oil light flashed.   I turned off the engine and crawled under the car.  There was a hole in my sump, big enough to push my finger in.  All my oil was gone and I was about 40kms out of the town.  (This is where it happened – check on Google Maps – -30.427916, 18.059807‎).  It was mostly downhill so I set off,  freewheeling where I could and using the engine where I had to, fervently praying that it would not seize.   I would probably still have been there if that had happened.  Once or twice I got out to push over a hump.  I also asked at a couple of farms if  they could sell me oil but to no avail.  Five kms out of town I saw a car pull into a farm just off the road so I pulled in next to it.  It was a lady who was visiting the farm from over the road.  After a short discussion with the farmer she offered to give me a lift into town where I caught the local mechanic just as he was closing.  He gave me some plastic steel and sold me 5 litres of oil.

I cleaned the hole with benzine from my stove and mixed the patch and put it on.  I was keen to leave but was persuaded to let the patch cure overnight.  The farmer, Basie and his wife, Annette, offered me a bed.  And so I spent an evening with locals.   It all seemed so calm and gracious.  They made me feel comfortable by asking me about what I was doing talking about life on the farm.  They gave no advice or recrimination.  If they thought I was irresponsible to be out there without ANY spares or tools (note to self…), they didn’t show it.  Annette cooked some lamb chops (manaqualanners just eat meat) and we sat around the table and chatted.  Basie grew up in the area as did his father.  They were keen to see my paintings and, as they said they liked them, I asked if they would accept one from me as a gift.  Basie realised the farm in this painting was where his father grew up so they accepted this.  And I think this is rather special.

The next morning I got in the dark and headed out under a crisp, starry sky.  Just outside Garies I stopped next to the road and made coffee which I drank with rusks as I watched the day dawning.

Koornkloofplaas – watercolours of a beautiful farm near Garies

I spent most of last Friday painting the farm Koornkloof (“Wheat ravine” I think) deep in the heart of the Rooiberg mountains East of the town of Garies in the Northern Cape.   The dominant peak is a Rooiberg (or is it Roodeberg?), a massive pyramid of red granite that is covered in snow in the winter.  Both “rooi” and “roode”  mean “red”.  Koornkloof is in a narrow valley below beautiful blue and red boiler plate slabs of granite.  There is a river flowing through the valley with, I suspect, a large catchment area to the North.  So it is a fertile and well watered corner.  I remembered large trees from the last time I was there but on this occasion, as I came round the corner my breath was taken away by a stand of massive fruit trees in full blossom.  I think they were apricot trees but never before have I seen such big fruit trees.  There were about twenty trees or more and each tree must have been 20m high.  At first I thought they were great white rocks.  Next to this copse was a stand of poplars that were even higher, leafless in their winter way.  This is what I had come to paint.  I worked on half size Arches 300gm cold press (380x570mm) which may have been a mistake as it took a long time to get the colours down.  But it was fun to sit in the warm sun.   While I was painting, a vicious looking beetle, black, with white spots on its back was working a grid up and down the embankment towards me.  When it got close enough I threw dirt clods at it.  It turned on me, then thought better of it and scuttled off into the bush.  I think they are called Tiger Beetles.   Here is the first watercolour:

The fruit-trees are off to the right.

I then went down to the other side of the farm and did this watercolour:

I was running out of time and getting tired so I tried to do this more quickly.  One day I would love to get permission to paint from the farm property.  I did not have the reserves to take the risk of asking farmers, who may be tired of tourists bugging them in the flower season.  Though I think they are friendly on that farm.  While I was there, two of their dogs came to visit, a large white Greyhound and a little Jack Russel and both were very friendly – dogs are a kind of give away.

When I was finished at Koornkloof I went further into the mountains to visit a B&B that had a signpost up.  I mentioned to Cecily that I would try to find a place or make contact with the locals to bring some watercolourists out here one day.  Well, I met the locals but in an unexpected way.  A story for my next post.

Gifberg

Gifberg is the North-Western corner of the Cape Fold Mountain belt and the Table Mountain Sandstone.  It stands as a welcoming sentinel to all coming South from Namibia.  North from here lie the vast plains and stark dry mountains and south lie watered mountains and valleys with vineyards and citrus groves.  Even the names change.  In the North from “Bitterfontein” (bitter spring), “Moedverloor” (Quail – “moed” is courage and “verloor” is lost), “Groothartseer” (literally “big heart sore” – something tragic happened there)  and “Douse the Glim” – (now there is a story) .  In the South Citrusdal (Citrus dale), Hebron, Vredendal (Peaceful dale I suppose).  ”Gif” means “poison” and of course “berg” is a mountain.  Gifberg is named after Hyaenanche globosa, or Hyaena poison, a bush, endemic to the area.  The San people used to use the crushed seeds to make their deadly arrow poison.  The early farmers also used pounded seeds to poison hyaenas and other predators.   The poison acts on the heart, like strychnine.  So that is the mountain.

On the way North I sat next to the road in the late afternoon and painted the mountain.

There was a chilly wind blowing.  As I finished the watercolour I began to think more and more of pizza.  Pizza?  Out here?  Well, Vanrhynsdorp is a little town set under the Gifberg and if you ever go there, it is worth dropping in at the Phucifino (I didn’t want to ask) restaurant that make a good one.  And after the pizza I had enough time to drive North to Garies before darkeness fell.

Garies has it’s own story.

Here is the watercolour I did of Gifberg on my way home early on Saturday morning.  I had turned off the main road onto a farm road to sit and paint.  So it was very peaceful and fresh.  While I painted I heard a flock of Namaqua Sand Grouse fly over, whose call always reminds me of the desert in Namibia.  A very pleasant experience all in all.

The horizon below the mountain is actually straight.  In the painting it curves down on the right which weakens the effort a little – but there you are – stuff to remember in the studio.