Puddle Rock

There is a collection of rounded quartzite boulders, set among jagged shales, just below the Clarence Drive, between Kogelbaai and Rooiels. The two large partners have been stable in place for as long as I have visited the site. However they look very much like they have been rolled around in the past. The thought of the waves big enough to move these huge rocks is cause for reflection. One of the rocks holds a small pool of water. So I call it Puddle Rock. This is one of my favourite sites on the False Bay coast
I have done quite a few 01 January paintings there.
I have worked hard to understand how to represent the two main protagonists in the Story of Puddle Rock.

More than 10 years ago I created a reinforced board just over 1000×1000 mm so that I could buy Arches off a roll and stretch it tight. I had completed two 1000×1500 mm paintings on 600gm Arches but the sheets were really expensive. So that was the plan. Oh and I had purchased a high-end video recorder to film the process. Then my bakkie was broken into and the camcorder stolen and soon after that the Lourens River flooded and my board stood in the muddy water in my studio. So I lost heart.

But after the last newsletter I resolved to use the stretched sheet and portioned off a section where the scuffs would be in the rocks and the muddy area could be cut off. And here it is. It is now on exhibition in Lanzerac Wine Estate – in the white wine cellar.

Dramatic hey?  This is for sale on my gallery.

The watercolour is 860 x 1100 mm.  Here are some stages along the way to completion:

I have been down their quite often to paint on site.  Some of these watercolours are in the gallery below:

Here are some of the previous versions of this scene I have done in my studio:

Here are some of the exercises I did to get the shapes right