In this February newsletter I cover:

• How far I am in the Meat Grinder project.
• An update on the delivery of my promise to launch the Watercolour Course at Helderberg Fine Art Studios.
• Some of my older postings of work I did at Kogel Bay.  This history is recorded in a few postings from long ago and to keep this newsletter at a reasonable size I have included links to the refreshed postings.

I have adopted an artists view on getting my website to be right and am in the process of learning WordPress, Avada, Woocommerce, how to take and set up photos and a few more components of effective website creation.

As usual this a call for you to pause…
Put aside what you are doing for the few minutes it takes to read
Sit back.
Close your eyes and take a deep, breath.

Now

Open the mail.
Download the pictures
enjoy the read
My friend Mike the Lead Guitar has recorded another beautiful accompaniment to this read if you open the newsletter on my website

Meat Grinder

I have focussed attention for months now on getting my website to look attractive and pleasant to surf.  It is still not there but I am getting a good idea of what I want and how to get it using the tools at my disposal.  So we plough on.  But it is time to paint.  Paint, paint, paint

I have started looking through the second-hand shops for interesting subjects for watercolours.  I bought a mincer from the local Animal Welfare shop.  It is well used and suitably worn.  Here are the exercises I have done so far.

Here is the first one

In this second version I wanted to keep the background to a minimum – but then it was not going the way I wanted so I stopped here.

And here how it is looking right now.  Better I think.

Watercolour classes

The first SJQ Watercolour Class will take place on:

Tuesday 07 March

at the Helderberg Fine Art Studios

at Bizweni Campus.

I have worked out a curriculum based on books from the people I have followed through my journey as watercolourist.  These include Charles Reid, John Blockley and Jeanne Dobie who’s colour strategy I really like.

We have a great group of people signed up and most of the seats are taken.  But there are a few open seats.

If you are interested in hearing more, please hit the button to leave a message on my website.

Well “Light is Sweet” is still going out.  Even though I am posting at the start of the next month again.  Please drop me a comment on my blog posting to give some feedback.  I will check to make sure comments are possible this time.

Next month I will talk more about a very exciting collaboration I have started for 2023.
Very very exciting

Kogel Bay is one of my favourite places in False Bay.  I have been going there from the time Aura and I settled here in The Basin.  This is the place where I first decided to take my kit and sit in the place and paint.  Although I was not happy with my first attempts, I still have them and they bring back some of the memories of that time.

The first painting (after the featured image) is my first ever painting out in the field.  And I think it is rather cool.  And when I look at the other paintings in the posting I have to ask myself if I have grown as much as I hoped as a watercolourist.  Check out the posting below.

Almost twenty years later I was still wrestling with the structures of the rock.  In fact if anything I had regressed!  But I picked up the slack by the last version.  Here is a posting of visits from that time:

There was one scene I painted about 10 times of the grey rocks with one orange lichen dappled rock with the peak in the background.  Sadly all of these versions are not in my collection.   But the practice eventually paid off.  In 2019 I went down to Caves Beach again and in 2021 I did a great watercolour of the rocky beach at sunset.   The story and the paintings are all in the posting below.

The posting shows one of my best “out there” paintings ever.  Which I gave to my friend Mike who records the music for these posts.  2019 and the exhibition was hard work for me and Mike was a great practical and emotional support in the process.

And a last painting

A while later I did another watercolour spanning over two weekends.  On each outing I was joined by my son Ethan.  We sat on the rocks at the path down to caves beach and I did this work:

I like this as it captures the feeling of the place.  And I used the brushwork approach of Charles Reid.

And that is an overview of my visits to Caves Beach Kogel Bay.
And that is “Light is Sweet” for February

Stephen J. Quirke