The Art of It

Our venue was changed from Maidens Cove to Tabelberg Road parking lot, due to the direction of the wind. We paint with this amazing lady who knows all these things due to many years of painting en plain air. For those who don't know Cape Town, this road runs along the base of Table Mountain and the Cable Car lower station is situated on it. In every direction there are spectacular views. Now I start my brush miles in ernest! This was my first take on the area, looking directly up towards the cable car on the top of Table Mountain. This is one very imposing mountain. This was done the following week looking towards Devils Peak, Table Mountain is on the right hand side of this. You can see some of the burnt trees from the regular fires we have in March. Painting outside is incredibly difficult and totally addictive. While standing out there in the wind and sun in this spectacularly beautiful place we are so fortunate to live in, you get surges of excitement rushing through you...

After much nagging, Lynn Northam finally set a date for her workshop. She spent the morning going through all the things to take, how to stop your brolly from blowing away (which is simply ingenious) etc etc and generally giving some amazing tips on how to. She then did a beautiful demo showing her technique of using Liquin in her base coat and rubbing it out with a cloth to get your highlights. It dries very quickly so you can then go directly on with adding the rest of the painting. Then we started painting. Unfortunately the canvas that I had taken was not prepared properly and I had to laugh off the painting part. It was a very short time anyway so it was not a problem, I just sketched. I do think that the workshop should have extended to another day when we could have painted in the morning, without pressure of time, under Lynn's supervision. She gave us so much information on the basic things that I was definately brain dead afterwards. Now for the practice! The brus...