Sunday morning on the Touw River

Posted on by Stephen

Yesterday I returned from a trip to George where again I stayed on the Touw River in Wilderness.  As usual I was much preoccupied with preparing for the coaching I was doing but after our session on Saturday I had a good snooze and had a morning next to the river.  The trail on the Eastern bank of the river is closed off with a wooden fence.  The path leads up to the fence – and around the river-side end – in a tight U-turn!  you would think a sign would be enough.  Anyway I also added my prints to the path and found a wonderful ledge of rock overlooking the river where I had a cup of tea from my stove (in my bowl cause I had forgotten to bring cups) and some rather dry hot cross buns.

As I sat there the cormorants worked up and down the river catching fish and I saw the Giant Kingfisher catch a fish too.  The wind dropped for a minute and the water turned glassy.  I saw a shoal of large fish cruising up the river.  Looking down I saw a shoal of small fish below my rock shelf.  Then I saw a cormorant swim around them and launch through the shoal catching a fish.  Then it saw me and took off out of the water and flapped to the other side of the river.

Then I sat and did this painting:

Although it takes a bit of juggling I took a video of the work.  Although, I forgot to hit “record” again and so only captured the work after the first few washes.  I will try to put in a cutting from this onto the YT.  I will have to see if Ethan can do some editing for me.

I thought of Linda Halcomb’s Chinese brush exercises as I painted the tree in the foreground – I could do with some practice with this too.

I then set up again and did this watercolour:

It was noisy on the river.   A family crowd sat for ages on the other side adding a lively component to the scene.  Songs from a local church service floated down from the hills and some canoeing ladies stopped to chat.  The sun was warm and the birds got a few calls in edge-ways.  All really quite pleasant.  Some guys passed by on the path above me…  a lovely lazy Sunday morning.

16 thoughts on “Sunday morning on the Touw River”

  1. What interesting paintings, Stephen. I like them both! The secind one defines the scene a little better, but I like the sprawling blues and wet look of the first one more! Enjoyable post, as always!

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  2. Both paintings are loose, juicy and gorgeous. I like the blue in the first painting but I really am impressed by the gentleness of the colors in the second. Thanks for the mention…I need to pull out my sumi-e brushes and get back to practicing.

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    • Hi Linda – thanks for the comments – all the best with the sumi-e. I woke up this morning thinking about my paintings at the Pipe, which I think have progressed nicely and thinking about how I would love to do the same thing with forests. It is a lot about seeing what is there isn’t it. And then having practiced the brush work to capture it.

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  3. Amazing how you can paint the same scene twice and get two beautiful results! I see you changed your palette slightly. In the 2nd one the mountains are purple and the river is white.

    I laughed when you said you tried to do the video but forgot to hit record! Eventually you will get it and become a Youtube sensation!

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    • Hi Carol – when I painted the second one I saw that the border between the background hill and the forest was sun-lightened foliage below which were dark patches of shade with some sparkles of green. So I tried to capture that. Thanks for your encouraging comments – I am not wild about this work. All of the positive comments help me to see the good things I want to take into the next attempt.

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  5. It sounds quite idyllic, especially that bit about the still water,the fish & the cormorants.
    And hot cross buns too – I’ve not had those for years- not very French, though I bet you could find them in Paris.
    I like the silhouetted tree & it does have an oriental feel to it.

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