Shelley Point at St Helena Bay

Posted by Stephen Quirke on June 2, 2012 under Art, en plein air, painting, seascape, watercolor, watercolour | 9 Comments to Read

This year is rocketing by in chunks – man!!!  But I am getting the right things done and am actually getting some painting done in-between it all.  This is the thing – living with intent.

Two weeks ago today I was travelling back from a workshop I facilitated for client of mine with their leadership team, at St Helena Bay up the west coast from Cape Town.  And if the different areas in Cape Town (Rondebosch, Seapoint, Bellville, etc) could be different countries, well from Langebaan north you could be on a different planet.  They have such an interesting culture.  In Afrikaans they ‘brei’ their ‘rrs’ so they sound like ‘gh’.  When I worked for the sea fisheries in Walvis Bay long ago I used to go to sea quite often on a research ship.  The first mate was a pleasant old guy from the West Coast region.  And he used to say “Ons het groot geword op droe growwe brood” which came out like a whole lot of guttural static with a few vowels ‘ingegooi’ – heh heh.  Four of us, the First Mate, the Engineer, Uncle Paddy the cook and I, used to sleep in bunks around the wardroom table.  And the other three used to snore loud enough to wake the dead.  However, enough of the venacular and this regression and digression.  To the paintings.

On the Friday afternoon I joined Marius and Rene for a drive to Velddrif to buy some ‘bokkoms’ (dried fish) and Snoek roe (which we ate that evening, deep fried with mayonnaise).  We stopped at the Noordblinder (North breakwater I guess) for a beer.  It was really just a shed with a counter, a TV, a stock of the usual liquor and some really (really really) interesting locals.  Quite fun.  After a beer and a chat with a guy who was doing training for the Air-force Academy up the road, we went down to the shore and while the others enjoyed the late afternoon sun I sat on the beach and did this painting:

This is 180x280mm on Arches 185gm cold pressed.

Then, because everyone seemed quite relaxed I did this one too:

This is on Arches Cold Pressed (300gm) and is 280x380mm.  Then it was time to go back for the evening event.

The next after breakfast morning I went for a walk with one of the delegates, down to the Stompneusbaai lighthouse which is in the Shelley Point development.  We chatted a while before he walked back and I stayed to complete this paining.  All too soon (I eventually had about 20 minutes by the time I had settled down on a convenient rock…) I had to rush back to check out and hit the road back to Somerset West.  This is the sketch I did which I think calls for a studio version:

This is also on Arches Cold Pressed (300gm) and is 280x380mm.

Watch this space for the studio version, but at this stage I would advise against one holding one’s breath – (o: