Life of a Cape Town Artist

Living in Cape Town is a very great priviledge for any artist. Here we are surrounded by all the best life can offer you. There are the beaches, sometimes deserted due to weather conditions, sometimes the most colourful display of people, umbrellas and all that goes with a summer holiday. Then we have the mountains, the vineyards with their awesome autumn colours. The old Cape Dutch houses, the colourful houses of the Bo-Kaap and the townships all make wonderful subjects for painting.

I love to go out over weekends and drive around and take pictures of possible paintings. It is not always practical to take all the painting material but I do take a sketch pad to draw pictures and compositions as I go along. There is just SO much beauty around us here in Cape Town, if the old masters only knew!

This is a painting inspired by a deserted beach on a cold day!

Make sure to visit my website: Painted Canvas. There you will find most of my paintings and at very reasonable prices. You can view my earlier works, my more recent works in various categories, little gems, and commissions. You will also find out how to commission a painting, be it a landscape, still life or portrait of your dear dog, cat or mother-in-law!

Enjoy!

A Red Rose for You

Okay, it is a bit late for Valentine's Day, but you can still buy this red rose for your loved one. I used some very dramatic colours for this little gem. I also made use of the complimentary characteristics of red and green. The green makes the red look even more red than it really is. There are a number of ways to use complimentary colours (those colours opposite each other on the colour wheel):

Here are a few ways to use complimentary colours:

1. Use a subdued compliment to make the other compliment stand out, as I have done here.
2. Use the compliment of a colour in its shadow area, for example use green in the shadow side of a red apple.
3. Use the compliment of a colour to grey down or soften the colour. Example add a little yellow to purple to make the purple less purple.
4. Use the compliment to create vibrancy or to make colours sing. Example: paint the blue sky over a orange ground layer and let the orange shine through. Just make sure the orange is already dry, else you will end up with a grey sky.


The Little Gems on my website are a great way to start investing in quality art. These small paintings are available for $100 or less. Have you ever seen how stunning a small painting looks in the right bulky frame?
You are also welcome to contact me if you want something specific in any size.
Please visit my website for more information.

Another commission finished etc

So much has happened since the beginning of this year, and it just feels as if we are on a roller coaster ride! I have finished this commissioned painting for one happy client. You can read more about this painting on my website. I have also chosen this painting to be the March Painting of the Month.
Max, Fly and Maggie

Furthermore I have and still are very busy with two portrait paintings which I want to enter for the SPI National Portrait Award 2013 competition. At this stage I feel I am too critical and I am really getting frustrated with myself. The competition is only in August and I have now decided to put these two paintings away until July and then  I can take a new and fresh look at it. Unfortunately I cannot show them here, not until after the competition.

So please visit my website! I will be adding two more Little Gems tomorrow.

Until next time!

Website updated

In the January edition of the SA Artist magazine there is a list of 10 things to do in 2013 regarding your painting career. I find that all of those 10 things mentioned are very important, although we sometimes tend to not even think about that. No 1 for instance is to tidy up the studio - throwing away old twisted and empty paint tubes. I will try to go through the whole list!

Yesterday I did number 7 on the list: Spring clean your website. I didn't change the look, but I reorganised my paintings, added a category for commissioned paintings, linked to my fellow artists' webpages and uploaded new paintings.

Paintings reorganised
In each category you will now first find the available paintings and then the sold paintings lower down on the page.

Commissioned paintings
There you will find out how to commission a painting and also see paintings of satisfied clients.

Linked to fellow artists
Under links you can click on the names of my fellow artists to go to their webpages
Anton Betz
Adele van Andel
Simonette van Oudtshoorn
Christelle Coetzee

The paintings that were on our exhibition are longer on exhibition pages, but incorporated in the various categories.
There is also a new painting of the month.

Please visit the website Painted Canvas  and do feel free to give comments and ideas. It will be appreciated.

A Nice Surprise!

Sometimes, no most often, we as humans plan our days ahead, and we are actually taught by the wise people that we should do it. And quite often our days pan out exactly as we have planned, or more or less at least. But then, in my life, even more often, it does not work that way, not that there is anything wrong with my planning, or the execution of my plans. Sometimes things just happen that we cannot see coming, like the day my dog died. That morning when I woke up I had all kinds of plans, but it all changed the moment I realised she was sick, and I took her to the vet. And later that afternoon she was just gone, but that's a story for a different blog.

This morning I also had my day planned out. Most of the day went according to plan, but I got this nice surprise: About September last year I entered a competition with one of my paintings. The winning painting would have been used for the cover of the December edition of the South African Artist Magazine. I didn't win. But this morning a friend e-mailed me to congratulate me on my great achievement.

In the Jan/Feb edition they gave the competition results of the winners and finalists. He said I was amongst the finalists.

There my day changed - I went to the art shop to buy the magazine, and there it was, a picture of my painting and my name - printed in a real magazine. My painting was amongst the 21 finalists chosen out of about 1200 entries received. What a nice surprise! What  an awesome feeling! What is that other than the favour of God!

This evening also did not go according to plan. On my menu for dinner was ONLY stir fry veggies (still struggling to loose a few holiday pounds!). Rather, we decided to celebrate. We went to Ocean Basket, had a starter, main meal and dessert and bottle of JC le Roux sparkling wine. More favour - it cost only R100, because I had 2 R100 vouchers!

I have previously posted the picture of this painting, but here it is again:  

The Red Umbrella

Pet Portraits

Creating a likeness, whether it be of a person, a cat or a dog or any other pet animal, is not always easy. It is difficult enough to draw or paint an animal or human that is not known by the viewer, but to paint a portrait so that it actually looks like the specific person or animal is even more difficult. Not only do you want to let it look like the model, but you also need to portray the personality or character.

When you do a portrait painting it normally looks very "dead" for most part. You make it come alive when you start with the eyes. And the eyes of a person or animal, done right, tell about the personality. If you don't get the eyes right, it would look like the person's twin or a total other dog or cat. There are a whole lot of technicalities to remember when painting the eyes concerning proportions, highlights and shadows, which will make it easier to do the eyes if you follow those rules. Remember when you do eyes, it says that the eyes is the window to the soul. That is truly so. Once you put the highlights in the eyes, the portrait really comes alive.

I took this photo of a friend's dog, Bennie, two years ago.

And last year December I made this painting for her as a Christmas gift. I changed the background a bit to give it some colour. I think I was fortunate to capture the likeness and to create the eyes. But you be the judge - leave a message to let me know what you think. I can now see the one eye is a bit too small - too much white. I will have to fix that!!

If you are interested in a portrait of your own dog, you can visit my website and get into contact with me and I will send you a quote and other information.

Happy New Year!

The year 2013 is already eight days long, and I know I'm late with my New Year's wishes, but I was on a well deserved holiday and I enjoyed every single moment of it. So I really hope that you all enjoyed a blessed festive season, and I hope that you were all so privileged to have such a nice holiday as I had.

This is my dog Maggie also wishing you all a happy new year! Just look at her smile - she was so glad I took her along on holiday.

This is Maggie and her friends on the beach at Pearly Beach. We stayed at Klein Paradijs - truly heaven!

Our cottage at Klein Paradijs. If you want to take your dogs along on holiday - this is the place to go!!!

Before Christmas I finished these two commissions. Now I still have one more commission to do and then we start working towards our next exhibition which will probably take place some time in April. All the planning and painting still lies ahead, but I look forward to every moment. I will keep you posted.

My New Year's message to all is this:  

Keep the faith, persevere, press in, cease every moment, make the most of every opportunity and stay healthy.

God bless!