Plein Air Painting

Cape Town has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, it is a "Plein Air" painting paradise. The city is situated on a mountainous peninsula, with a multitude of beaches, harbours and wild rocky seascapes just crying out to be painted.

I go out into the countryside every Monday with a painting group, "The Plein Air Painters of the Cape". I usually take my watercolours in the hope of catching the fleeting impressions created by the ever-changing light. It is important to charge my memory banks by drawing and painting from life on a regular basis. I can then use these stored images when painting from my imagination.

Today we painted on the banks of the Liesbeck River, enjoying the winter sunshine as it filtered through the trees. The river flows from the craggy rocks of Table Mountain and is full after the heavy winter rain of last week. The water is an orangy-brown, brackish, straight from the mountain.