False Bay Watercolours

The Calendars are ready for distribution.  Drop me a comment or an email if you would you like to order a calendar.

Pricing
A3 calendar – R300.
A4 calendar – R250

Here is my latest view of Puddle Rock.  The watercolour is 880 x 1110 mm.  I think this will be a good cover for a 2024 calendar

Hangklip from Moonlight Bay with a storm brewing

Hangklip is the outcrop of Table Mountain Sandstone standing as sentinel on the eastern entrance to False Bay.

The dunes on Moonlight Bay, between Hangklip and the Hangklip lighthouse just behind where this view is taken) are covered in metalasia muricata and other fynbos plants.

Looking across Pringle Bay, towards Rooiels, the rounded peak in the middle distance.

There are regions of intense folding in the Table Mountain Sandstone seen in the area. The contorted quartzites in the foreground are a great example of this.

Apparently the tip of the continent was depressed at some point fracturing in long East-West faults. The layers of sediment slid down between the faults, folding against to opposite wall. Then the tip of the continent was elevated, reversing the faults to expose the folds.

Something like that

Caves Beach at Kogelbaai in the Winter

This section of coast in False Bay is pounded by swells in the Winter storms. It is quite dramatic. It seems the swells come up unhindered from the Southern Ocean to smash into the stretch of coast.

The waves strip the beach of sand. And the massive boulders in the foreground are rolled around.

When Summer returns, currents in False Bay return the beach sand, scrubbed clean for another beach season.

Bikini Beach in Gordons Bay

Looking from the Harbour Breakwater towards Nuns Pool. Cape Point is just out of sight behind the headland.  This is a popular swimming spot.  And sometimes, when the swell is right, there is a world-class wave curling in from that headland in the middle distance.

This beach was pounded by massive waves this Spring.  Cars in the parking bays – off-screen to the left – were washed around by the waves.

The boardwalk at The Pipe

The Pipe, our local surf break is named after the remains of effluent pipe from the Gants canning factory – which of course is gross. But this is the way people did things in those days.

The boardwalk is now well-covered by the shifting dunes. A few years back I watched them dig a channel through the dune to build the boardwalk – wondering all the time at the lack of geomorphic understanding in the halls of decision-making.

I have sat to paint about 50 versions of this view, in all weathers and at all times of the day over the last 20 years. You can see some of these in the posting below:

The house on Old Stellenbosch Road with a view of False Bay.

In our basin we catch glimpses of the bay from many different places. I grew up inland and still recall the thrill of the first sight of the ocean when we travelled to the coast.

This orange roofed house looks out over False Bay, a delightful contrast of secondary and primary colours.

I have painted this view quite often and it has been a pleasure to meet the people living in this house right now.

Another view of False Bay from our town.

We have a vineyard above the town where people are allowed to walk their dogs. And there is another view of the bay.

That is Hangklip and Rooiels in the far distance.

A surfer standing on Muizenberg beach.

On good days this corner of the bay producers lovely, long-running long-board swells.

Sometimes there are Great Whites around and there have been shark-attacks. The shark spotters up on hillside are pretty sharp when the water is clear enough.

Watercolour on 300gm Arches Cold Pressed
610 x 460 mm

The fishing boat K coming in to Kalk Bay to offload their catch.

Fishing boats leave Kalk Bay harbour soon after midnight to be in the fishing grounds before dawn. They
return at about midday to offload their catch. When I posted this painting on the Kalk Bay Community site it elicited a healthy interaction about who the people on the boat were.

Watercolour on 300gm Arches Cold Pressed
610 x 460 mm

This is a view from the walk-way above Boulders Beach – looking towards Elsies Peak in Fish Hoek.

Boulders Beach was a favourite place to enjoy the bay till about the turn of the century.  However the dress code went up when jackass penguins began nesting amongst the granite boulders (This is a joke – referring to the formal-looking attire of penguins).

The penguins are threatened as they have to travel further and further afield to feed which impacts on their capacity to breed.

Millers Point looking across to Hangklip on the other side of the bay. Although the seabed drops away quite sharply on this side of the bay these granite outcrops stand out and create lovely undersea structures for diving.

For watercolours there are bands of colour variation on the coast. The sea, the dark rocks in the surf, the bleached dry boulders and the grey, lichen covered rocks further inland.

Smitswinkelsbaai is a community down a long, winding path below the road to Cape Point.

It is a fresh beach sometimes plagued by the local troupe of baboons.

Large shoals of yellowtail move down the coast and are plundered by the Trek-Netters who are waiting in this watercolour.