The beauty of a book.

We are traveling through an  extraordinarily beautiful, remote and harsh landscape where our days are filled with the hard work of bush camping, but the work is more than matched by the rewards of being here. 

There are those who wouldn't bring young children on this kind of adventure due to the lack of physical comfort and the fact that elephant, lion and hyaena regularly roam through the campgrounds at night. We work hard all day to keep the kids safe, fed, happy and willing to be roused before sunrise for game drives. As night falls the need to keep them inside the safety of our camp rises sharply.

 I have always loved the way a good book smooths the edges of a tough day. What is even more beautiful is when one sees the same love of reading in ones children, alongside a fire on which dinner is cooking, at the end of a dusty day.

Shortly after the photo was taken, the boys were tucked up in rooftop tents and younger brother was asleep within minutes.

Breakfast

Our camp for the past 2 nights has been on the banks of the Chobe River. We are deep in the bush and apart from the ten or so of us camping, there is no one else here at night. Just us and what at times looks like an Eden of impala, zebra, hippo, fish eagle, elephant, all mingling on the shores and flats, which in the rainy season are submerged by the river. Hyaena and hippo keep us awake while elephant  move silently past our tents at night and gentle impala and zebra wander through our campsite at dawn. This morning's game drive took us out of our camp as the sun rose, the past few days we have had amazing game viewing but as yet had seen no lion. Shortly after leaving camp we passed through herds of impala and zebra standing in the first, early golden rays of then sun. We rounded a corner and came across a group of 6 young lioness, lying on an open piece of veld, right next to the road. We were the first and only to spot them and had them to ourselves as the basked in the sun. True royalty of the bush, they showed little interest in our presence, clearly rulers of their surroundings. Eventually they got up and headed off in to the deeper bush, climbing tree trunks and playing with each other, chasing, tumbling, pouncing with tails high and dust billowing as their play kicked it up. Eventually they were gone, blending back in to the bush, with no hint that they had just been there.  The encounter was brief and extraordinary, we felt blessed to have been there for that brief moment of wonder.

Breakfast followed a little further down the road, with apricot jam on bread baked in yesterday's fire, fruit, tea, coffee and hot chocolate on the roof of the Landrover. Around us were giraffe, impala and of course baboon (hoping to sneak an apple) and the Chobe glistened alongside us. A pair of local fishermen poled past us on their mokoro's, greeting us with a wave. We waved back and shouted hello in Tswana - "dumela!". Breakfast in Africa.

Where the Earth meets the sky.

After a lot of planning, dreaming, hard work and un-inspiring highways and border posts, we have finally arrived exactly where we wanted to be. We are in a place of utterly vast, empty beauty where ones eye travels all the way to where the land and sky meet.  We are in the Nata Bird Sanctuary in central Botswana. There is no one else here, just us and a sea of yellow grass, with an ancient salt pan lying beyond it, extending until it touches the sky. I explained the word "horizon" to our two boys, pointing to the far distant shimmering line where salt pan and blue sky meet each other. I couldn't have found  a more perfect example.

After a full moon night we woke to the same view but this time it was lit up by the gold of an African sunrise, the moon still hanging heavily above us. We loaded up our Landrover and hit the road again, this time heading due North to Kasane and Chobe National Park, one of Africa's remaining Edens.

Cape Town to Maun

I am in wintery Cape Town but tomorrow we pick up a Landrover and head in to the wilds and wonder of Botswana. It will be just the 4 of us, some maps, a GPS and a desire to be far from all that usually consumes our days. We have things we hope to see (Lions, barking Geckos, elephants are all high on the list). I am looking forward to the vast nighttime skies of the African bush and taking time to take in details of my days. Even though being off the grid is one of the things I look forward to the most, I might turn up in my blog from time to time too as a way to record and remember things that strike a chord. Yesterday I spent a day at the edge of a stormy, rainbow-skied winter ocean with rain showers and surfers taking off in massive swell. Tomorrow I travel in to the bush with it's bone dry days and freezing nights. From rain seeping all around to dust that permeates everything, I can't wait.

Kalk Bay

A magnificent winter's day in one of my favorite places on earth truly delivered. Company, food, rainbows, a harbor that seems to be almost lost in time and light and colours so intense one couldn't help but take notice.

I shall have to return, but for now it is on to the next adventure.

Beautiful Land.

There is nothing like a road trip through a landscape one has known since birth when one has lived far away for two decades. Everything is deeply familiar, yet at the same time fresh and new. South Africa's fields and farms are the first source of my inspiration and what inspires me in other landscapes has roots very often right here. Wintery light right now means intense colour, green grasses and flowering succulents not seen in the dry months of summer. I sit in the passenger seat, eyes (and iPhone) glued to the passing landscape. Familiar imagery and new inspiration. Such a beautiful land. I look forward to getting back in to my studio to see where this takes me.

Painting Days

Having painted lots of blues and greys all winter, my palette seems unable to do anything right now but reflect the brilliance outside my studio. Pinks, yellows, greens and blues all have all moved to front and center. No longer are these brilliant tones a splash of colour to accent a more muted piece, they are currently the stars of the show.

The series I am currently working on is simply called "Colour Series". It is a body of work I began, having realized that all I want to explore right now is colour in all it's nuances, tones and relationships. The best thing to do in these situations is to dive right in and revel in the options, so I am.

Yellow has alway been a hard colour for me to work with, I have never found yellows to be a colour that took up large space on my canvases. Finally I am finding  a place for it - mostly lemony, green hued yellows, but yellows nonetheless in all their wonder. Bearing in mind the previous post, it doesn't take much to see the beginnings of my new enthusiasm for yellow.

Pink is a colour that has suffered great overuse and abuse, but is a true color of Spring and appears in nature with such magnificence that I cannot leave it out. Pink walks a line between the tepid pinks of pastels and the deep magenta-hues of the Peonies that have just bloomed in my garden. I love to give pink it's due and let it stand for all things deeply feminine and strong.

Green, like yellow is a color I have danced around a bit and never really explored. Now that it is spring, how can I not draw inspiration from the insanely grassy-green grass and brilliant yellow-green tips on the trees outside my window? As a result, there is lots of green being mixed on my palette.

There is of course always blue on my palette, it is the color that speaks to me most truly. I am adding bits of brilliance and hints of grey to my blues, so that they can best off-set the brilliance elsewhere.

As the days heat up and we head towards summer with the hills around us turning dusty and yellow, will my colors reflect not only summer's brilliance but also the dried-earth ochre and yellowing grass of my days? I look forward to finding out...