Acacia Pied Barbet, Redeyed Bulbul & Cape White-eyes. Watercolour.325 x 505mm.
Some time ago I posted a blog featuring the seed-eaters under the title; ‘Feeding the Birds’. I really love the birds, so I continue to photograph them in and around our garden. Those that come to the bird table outside my studio window are a wonderful and colourful distraction. We feed them seeds and crushed maize, bread crusts, grated cheese, dry cooked maize porridge called, ‘Umphokoqo’, and fruit. The oranges have to be attached with wire to keep them from falling onto the ground below.
Crested Barbet. Watercolour & Gouache 470 x 285 mm.
As it is the fruit-salad season at the moment, with oranges and paw-paws in abundance, I have kept the fruit–eating birds happy with all the fruit-skins that they enjoy. The first birds that come for them include; the Crested and Pied Barbets, the Mousebirds, The Red-eyed Bulbuls and many more. The Crested Barbet is so bright and cheerful while all around winter hues still drape the garden in sombre tones of ochre and grey, and the seed-eating weavers have yet to clothe themselves in their bright breeding plumage of red and yellow. Therefore I decided to make a small study of some of these fruit-eaters. The bright and dainty Cape White-eyes are my favourites, so I chose two compositions with them.
Mousebirds with Oranges. Watercolour. 385 x 265 mm.
Cape White-eyes on the Grapevine. Watercolour & Gouache. 290 x 420 mm.
Sheep May Safely Graze
Mother Patrick, St Patrick’s Blue, & a trio of Blue Studies.
An Architectural Study.
- Nice painting... 
Spring has sprung on Silvermere.
Sweet Violets. Watercolour. 350 x 250 mm
Looking at these pictures you could be anywhere in the world when spring arrives. I am sure most of you recognize the beautiful heralds of the season; the daffodils, the violets and the willow! But this is the karoo, and though the rains have yet to arrive and set the veld alive with colour, we celebrate the newness of the season in our garden as it comes to life with joy. God is good and our lives are made new each day by His wondrous Grace!
Daffodils. 250 x 350 mm watercolour
Willow, Willow o’er the pond,
Water lilies and draping frond;
Darting fish and rushes grow,
Brushed by the whispering winds that blow.
But times do change, and the past it flees,
The pond is gone, but not the trees;
The birds will come and nest again,
The winds will blow and then the rain.
The Willows stand and the grass will run,
The spring will go and the summer come!
( My willow poem)
Draping Willow. Watercolour sketch. 210 x 290 mm.