Different Strokes from Different Folks

Different Strokes...

This little painting was done in response to Karin Jurick's challenge on her blog: Different Strokes from Different Folks - She puts out a photo as a challenge, artists then respond to the challenge by painting an interpretation of that photo and then posting the painting to her site.

This week we're working from a black and white photo of a landscape somewhere in Pennsylvania, the idea is to fill in colour from your imagination - I've given it a South African feel, since I have no idea what the landscape looks like.

Knysna holiday - Girl on the beach in Natures Valley

Girl on the beach in Natures Valley

We spent a week in March traveling through the Garden Route (Western Cape, South Africa), our base was in Kynsna a beautiful seaside town famous for it's treacherous 'Heads'.

This painting was done from a photo taken in Natures Valley - just short of two hours drive from Knysna. Natures Valley is one of the most beautiful places to live in the world!

The weather was perfect - light breeze and clear sky - but the aerial perspective was thick and close... Aerial perspective is the effect where distant hills are blue'er and less detailed. (More info on aerial perspective.)
I watched as people walk along the beach in what seemed to be perfectly clear weather, but they'd start fading as if they were walking into a thin mist. Details only a few hundred meters away were completely lost. This girl stood pondering something on the beach unaware that she was fading.

This is the first completed painting in a series from that holiday.

The winter rain is setting in now and it's heart warming to be working on paintings filled with bright sun!

Girl Walking

Girl Walking
Oil on Masonite
150mm x 180mm
Click here To Bid

As with many of my paintings, this painting was done in the studio from a photo taken on the streets of Cape Town.
This girl was walking at a brisk pace through the suburbs where I live. I captured this image as she walked past a neighbor's wall with the midday sun filtering through the tree branches.
Capturing the light flitering through those branches was interesting - it's amazing how easy it is to completely mess up something that looks so easy.

Fruit Seller - Smoke break

Fruit Seller - Smoke break
Oil on Masonite
150mm x 180mm
SOLD

This vendor sells his wares about 50m from the Queen of the Street selling seasonal fruit.

Cape Town's CBD is littered by vendors of all sorts, you can buy anything off the street from muti, to food, to radios, TVs and imitation fragrances.