Best advice ever!

The best advice I have ever received from a painter was this: "Draw everyday, it does not matter if you draw only a leaf, or an apple, but draw everyday." This advice I received from a well-established artist, AA Louw, when I was still just a child. This is also something you will read in almost every "How to-book" about art that you can find. To have a good painting, the underlying drawing must first be good, whether you draw with pencil, charcoal or brush and paint. The proportions should be correct, the perspective should be correct and the composition must draw the eye into the painting and keep it moving within the boundaries of the painting. That is when a painting is "eye-catching". A good composition will draw the eye to a focal point, and when the eye moves away, it will immediately be drawn back to that focal point.

The goal of this post is not to teach about drawing and composition, there are enough books written about it. The aim is just to stress how important it is, and to encourage other, and maybe younger artists to draw everyday. Take a notebook and pencil, and draw everything you see. I will post some of my drawings at a later stage.

Here is a painting that, I think, draws the eye into the painting by the directional lines of the road and trees and the viewer's eye tends to go back to the focal point, which is the figure. A friend of mine bought this painting and it is a scene from the most beautiful town in South Africa, Greyton in the Western Cape. By the way, people and animals give life to any painting. You almost always find figures in the paintings of people like Renoir! I think he had some eye-catching abilities.

First art exhibition

There is always a first for everything: first painting, first still life, first landscape, first portrait (still to come!) and first exhibition. Firsts are normally not the best, and fortunately for us, most of the time we get second and third chances as well. Is it not true of everything in life?

For an artist it is even more important to persevere, to never give up, your big break might be just around the next corner. And none of us wants to experience rejection, but if you exhibit your work and nothing get sold, it is very human to experience rejection. But we are overcomers. We know that especially in difficult economic conditions, art works are not at the top of the list of needs, it is a luxury. I think Vincent experienced that more than any other artist!

I was fortunate. Two friends and I organised an exhibition of our art works. We held it at my house, we made posters and we spread the word. It was not just another winter's day - it was a cold one. We made it warm and cosy inside, we had cherry and snacks for everybody. Quite a number of people came. It was a huge success and I was fortunate because I sold two paintings! OK you guessed right, my mother bought them! And she still has them. My mother knows a lot about good investments! My friends also sold a few works. It was an awesome first experience!

The joy of stretched canvas

I still remember this day like it was yesterday. The first day that I painted on stretched canvas. What a joy! I know some people probably prefer canvas panel. That is good, but to me, stretched canvas gives a certain bounce when you paint on it that you do not get from panel. It was another lovely autumn day. I had set up outside on my veranda overlooking my beautiful garden.

I painted the "Volkskombuis" - a restaurant in Stellenbosch. It was from a photo I took when I was there. It was not autumn when I took the picture, but I turned it into an autumn day. It is not a large painting, but I was very pleased with the outcome, especially the sky and trees. That day I have decided to always paint on stretched or boxed canvas whenever I can afford it. Looking back I can see how my style started to develop. I know I am not yet there - I will never be "THERE", but as long as I can improve along the way, I will be happy.

Deep in the forest...there is a light

A few years have gone by. During that time I was always drawing and painting. I gave many paintings away, also sold a few. By now my paintings were well over R100 per piece. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them all. Wish I had. While I was working in Potchefstroom as a meteorologist, I only had weekends to paint. This forest scene was done on one of those weekends.

Even though some might think that it is a very "dark" scene, depicting some dark or evil, I do not look at it that way. I rather look at it as saying that in the middle of this dark and lonely forest, there still is light and peace. And I believe that in the middle of our deepest troubles, if we look at the whole, we will see light and we will find peace.

I still have this painting in my house and it is available if you want to buy it. Although it is framed, I will not include the frame in the price.

Painting the sea

I was still working from my book "how to paint landscapes". Actually it included seascapes. I tried this one. I think it is not so easy to paint waves, because you have to give the impression of the light going through the water. But then I consider myself an impressionist, so I must be able to give impressions. That is the job of an impressionist. Not always an easy job. I haven't done many seascapes after this one, where it is only the sea. Most paintings I do with the sea as part of it, the sea is more of a background, and not so close-up. But I will attempt that in future again.

This painting I sold to my oldest brother and made R7 profit. In those years R7 was a lot of money. I could buy my next canvas with that and maybe one or two tubes of paint. My mother was glad that I was finally starting to make some money. I hope that one day I will also be able to say like Renoir: "I think I am beginning to get a hang of this."

Autumn Again...

It is that time of year again...when the trees turn to golden yellow, and raw sienna, and deep red. That time when the sky looks more blue than usual and there is that something in the air. Here in Cape Town, autumn is the most beautiful time of year. The days are more colourful, it is not cold and also not too warm. Most days there are just a light breeze. Whenever you plan to visit Cape Town, come in the autumn. You will not be sorry!

From childhood I have always loved autumn. That is why I tried this painting. It was also in the book. But even with all the step by step instructions, I couldn't get the trees quite right. But don't forget, I was still in school, if I can use that as an excuse! But trees are difficult. When you are a beginner, you try to paint each and every leaf, instead of masses of colour. My mother liked this painting, it is still hanging in her house, but then again, she likes all my paintings. She has to, she is my mother and she has invested a lot of money into my painting career.

I hope I will one day be able to paint trees like Renoir!
I would like to hear from you.

More Arniston

I was determined. I just had to get these fisherman's cottages in Arniston right. The problem is you won't get a book on "how to paint the fisherman's cottages in Arniston". Maybe I should write that book one day! I had a few photos I took when we were there on holiday and a few pictures of other people's paintings. But I didn't want to just copy those, I wanted to do my own original paintings.

It was the year 1983 that I did these two paintings of Arniston. I did many more but I never took any photos of them. I will try to get a photo of my best one, I know who has it. These ones, I think, are better than my first attempt. The houses are more in proportion. By the way, (and you don't have to believe me, go see it for yourself) the colour of the sea is always that exact colour that is on this one painting, ALWAYS! It does not matter if it is overcast or raining or sunshine. It is the most amazing thing.


I heard this morning that Mohammad Ali once said: "If you want to dance in the light, you have to run in the dark." For me that means, if I want to achieve Renoir status, I still need to learn A LOT and paint A LOT. What does it mean for you?