This is a watercolour of the Piketberg from near the top of Piekeniers Pass. I have wanted to sit and do this for as long as I remember coming through here but of course I have always been going somewhere else.
I have taken a couple of days to fill the well.
There is a town called Piketberg on the slopes of the mountain. The Afrikaans people have a story about the town drunk who took a short-cut through the grave-yard late one night after the usual. He fell into an open grave and passed out. He was woken late the next day by the sun shining in his face. He climbed out of the grave thinking he must have died and this was the resurrection. He looked around and said “Swak Piketberg” (Swak means “shame, bad, fail, all wrapped in a word with a strong dose of contempt”.

The road to Garies

In 2009 I took some time to take a drive North to a town called Garies. In the past I have seen beautiful flowers there and thought it would be a good place to investigate for watercolour opportunities. This posting is something about the road up to Garies. I have updated some of the text to repost the story.

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I have taken a couple of days to fill the well. My route has taken me North on the road to Namibia. I want to visit the town ‘Garies’. We camped there once as a family on our way up to paddle down the Orange River and I want to pause and look around.

This is a watercolour of the Piketberg from near the top of Piekeniers Pass. I have wanted to sit and do this for as long as I remember coming through here but of course I have always been going somewhere else. On this trip though I had come to paint watercolours so I sat on a rock wall and painted this watercolour. I was about finished when it started to rain. You can see the splatters on the painting. I think maybe I could have added a few more darks. The dark area in the foreground is an island of unploughed land in the middle of the field. I suppose there is an outcrop of granite or something.

Piketberg

Piketberg painted from Piekernierspas on the road to Garies

This was quite a nice little painting I thought. But I have this self-denigrating aspect to my self-evaluation so I eventually cut it in half and painted on the other side.

There is a town called Piketberg on the slopes of the mountain on the horizon of the painting. The Afrikaans people have a story about the town drunk who took a short-cut through the grave-yard late one night in his usual state. He fell into an open grave and passed out. He was woken late the next day by the sun shining in his face. He climbed out of the grave thinking he must have died and this was the resurrection. As he scrambled out of the grave he looked around and said “Swak Piketberg!”

(Swak – pronounced “swuk”) means “shame, bad, fail”, all wrapped in a word with a dash of “stupid” and lashings of contempt.

Anyway I continued the trip North towards Vanrhynsdorp where I sat next to the road to paint the iconic mountain there.

I was going to collate all of the notes into a single posting. However I made some friends online in what became the blogosphere and they left some precious notes which I want to keep. And I would love to hear your comment on this story.