Lemon and Herbs

When life gives you lemons, paint them...
Oil on board, 20 x 15 cm (= about 8 x 6 inches):

Cloves, tomato, apricot jam

I remain torn between oils and acrylics for this sort of painting. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. In practice, I work with one for a while, then get sick of it and switch to the other. Perhaps I'll eventually figure out which one I really prefer.

Oil on board, 20 x 15 cm (=about 8 x 6 inches):

Mini tomatoes

Acrylics on board, 20 x 15 cm (8 x 6 inches):

Apple

Acrylic on board, 20 x 15 cm (= about 8 x 6 inch):

Fallen things

After an evening storm, another batch of fallen leaves and blooms. Ballpoint pen and watercolor pencil on paper:

Three Tulips

Acrylic on board, 20 x 15 cm (= about 8 x 6 inches):

Autumn Treasures

Autumn in the southern hemisphere. I have long loved weathered late-season leaves, and this time of year there is such a glut one doesn't know where to start. On my morning walk, I collected a bagful, and sketched some in ballpoint and watercolor pencil...

Baby Brinjal Brothers

Acrylic on board, 10 x 15 cm (= 4 x 6 in):

Garden sketches

I went out into the garden, and sketched whatever caught my eye. Ballpoint pen with watercolor pencil.

A YUGE cow

EDIT, 27/11/2019:

The book announced below has since been unpublished, so it is no longer available at Amazon. I have decided to make it available for free at a rather nice little website I just discovered, called Storyweaver.

My latest children's book, Itumeleng and the Moo-normous Cow, is finally available!

You can read the first few pages on my Books page here.

An Afrikaans version is also available:

It's a bit of a departure from my previous books, in that it is extensively illustrated. I had so much fun with it, I think I'm going to stick to this format for a while!

Blossoms and butterfly

Another experiment in Chinese style, following a tutorial I found here. I'm thinking of using it as art project for a bunch of middle school kids:

I didn't have a suitable red, so the blossoms came out a bit too scarlet!

Red things

Acrylic on board, 20 x 15 cm (= about 8 x 6 inches):

In the meantime...

I have been rather busy, getting my latest children's book ready for publication. It's the first one with lots of color pictures, so there are all manner of technical considerations of which I knew little when I started out, so I am going through a rather steep learning curve, so I have little time for much else. But I did try to fit in some experimental bits and pieces and random sketches.

I now and then indulge in these rather relaxing and meditative pseudo-mosaics, done in ballpoint and colored pencil:

A botanical sketch:

A quick colored pencil sketch after Van Gogh:

And some experimental watercolors, after YouTube tutorials:

I hope to put final touches on the new book by the end of next week, but who knows - things always take much longer than planned!

Snowman

A fun little experiment in watercolor on cardboard, 15 x 21 cm: