With not having much time to paint of late and my studio reverting to its original use as a bedroom I don’t have much on offer, but here is a second one from my giraffe period that I managed to complete whilst the house was a slumber.
Hopefully, normal service will shortly resume.
Other paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
Well, I did warn you in the last blog… . Some of the animals I saw in my recent trip did seem to project a personality, that doesn’t require caricature to define. Here, a giraffe, with it’s turn of the head amused me.
Other paintings are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
On our last morning on the Etosha Salt Pan in Namibia we came across a leopard sat up in one of the many dead trees. It seemed to become part of the tree itself: it’s limbs just adding to the myriad of dead branches. This was a compilation of a number of photos as it settled itself into its perch. Unfortunately the wagon we were in wasnt allowed to leave the road and get us a better angle so all we got were versions of this rear view, but when it turned its head it was quite majestic.
I did a couple of paintings as presents for our guide and our cook and will send them to them when I get their addresses.
I must admit on this tour of Namibia, the game reserves were the last places I wanted to go. Years before I had seen wild animals in Kenya and Tanzania and really didnt want to see any more. However, the day I spent sat sketching beside a waterhole just yards from my hotel room was very special, watching the animals and birds slowly come and go in the heat of the day and noting their behaviour as they approached and as they drank certainly kept me enthralled.
I might even try a few animal portraits from some of the material I have collected: you have been warned. Anyway, before that, A Merry Christmas to all my readers.
Other paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
When I was abroad I received a commission to paint a cottage in Cartmel which is in the English Lake District in Cumbria. It will be for a present. The cottage seems to be an old mill, set beside the village stream. On drawing it I realised that there was no symmetry in this building. The photo I received is rather flat and taken in winter, so I have added some colour and put the leaves back on the trees.
Being away on the run-up to Christmas has caused me to miss some of the exhibitions around here. I managed to get my framer, Glynn, to hold his window for me so at least I got some paintings out before Christmas ( but only just). I have restricted it to landscapes of the area around us and called it ‘ Behind the Dunes’ as we have a very sandy beach around here. I forgot my camera when I set it up but here is an image from last year – apologies for the quality and my bike getting into the frame.
Thanks to Glynn at Ges Bur Studios, Southport for the space.
Other landscapes for sale are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
Finally back to Cape Town for a few days before departure. In the sunshine on Camps Bay with the sea smoothed boulders which at some time must have come down from the hills above. It would make me a bit wary of living there. The beaches seemed a bit empty, possibly in the weekdays running up to the school holidays.
We had a day out at the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens in Cape Town. They are set beneath the dramatic drop of Table Mountain so you could just put a lawn there and it would look stunning. I found painting the amorphous masses of folliage and obtaining a sense of depth difficult as even the mountain slopes are covered in vegetation. Sitting in the pelargonium garden I was offered some colour to pull the foreground forward and as I worked I noticed the background slopes get bluer so that offered more of a differentiation for the background. As the day progressed the hills grew a mysterious darkness which really set off the gardens.
Other landscapes and seascapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
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On to the small seaside resort or Hermanus. The backdrop to this town is spectacular with it’s high mountains. Literature said that there could be sightings of whales from the shore, but I think we were a little late in the season and unlike the unpretentious town of Mossel Bay where you could watch dolphins cavort and surf in the waves here there were just a few fishermen catching crayfish.
However, the long walk along the front of the town was worth doing and this was where I painted the view above looking over the fynbos, which is Mediterranean type scrub, on top of the low cliffs back to the town centre.
This was the view from the hotel window, in the middle of the town, out to the new harbour. The waves crashing into the shore in the evening light were quite a sight which I havent really managed to capture.
We walked along the cliffs to the new harbour, but it was a rather sad affair. Hermanus is really missing a trick or two in not developing its old or new harbour areas. Maybe the town will wake up one day.
Other seascapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
Starting our return journey back to Cape Town we stayed at a place just north of Mossel Bay which was at the foot of a mountain range with fantastic views everywhere. This was the view from one of the room’s windows.
There was riding as well as flat green bowls and squash available at this place. I sat in the morning light and sketched some of the horses in the paddock.
Then into Mossel bay which didnt look very promising at first with its oil refinery and business quarter but the old town was very pleasant. Sitting at a beach side cafe under the old lighthouse watching the dolphins surf the incoming waves in the bright December sunshine was better than Liverpool in the snow.
Other watercolour paintings can be found for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
Down to Plettenberg bay. We had a 10k walk along the Robben Peninsular which, I was told later, a few dont return from. At the end it was hard going but we made for a pristine beach where the breakers pounded in and I rested my weary bones and did this sketch after cooling my feet in the crystal sea.
Another sketch from the same area on a different day. The cliffs tower above you though I think rockfalls are rare, they do occur from time to time.
Other seascapes and landscapes are available on my website for sale: grahammcquadefineart.com
So on to Stellenbosch to taste a few wines. I must admit I thought that the vineyards would be on the northern slopes in the southern hemisphere, but apparently not as I sat here facing north with the vines behind me, but I felt the mountain backdrop, with the grassland in front, was a better subject to paint .
Then on to Oudshoorn, further east. Here I sat at the gates of our hotel facing up to some of the shacks many of the black community live in. Some people’s housing in South Africa is appalling, although the whites seem to live in opulence, surrounding themselves with razor wire and electric fences. We have some pretty bad places in the UK, but nothing to what I have seen in South Africa. Someone said to me that they stable their horses in better conditions
Other paintings for sale can be found on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
The animal head sellers who stationed themselves just below our hotel balcony in Simonstown, south of Capetown seemed a good subject until they decided to up and leave mid session. There were two of them on the seafront pitch. The brains of the operation, I presume he was, as he didnt do much work, standing up and the head maker sitting under the shade making the strange animal heads out of wire. It might have been better if I had moved them up the page, but you dont notice these things in the haste of getting it down.
We then went to the end of the peninsular and sat on the Cape of Good Hope and I painted some of Cape Point. The cliffs are breathtaking and not for those who suffer from vertigo. I dont think I captured the plummeting cliffs very well, but it was great sitting in the sun painting. Fortunately a troop of baboons made their way past and headed for the beach, so leaving me in peace. It was a great place to visit.
Other landscapes are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
graham mcquade 