One morning I left the camp early to paint on top of a koppie I saw from our camp. To get there I had to carry my bike through some river channels. You can see the river channels in the painting. These are delineated by lines of trees. Cutting across the channels could be tricky because of the thick growth and steep banks but a local farmer had built concrete weirs across the river bed which made thinks a little easier.

I sat on top of a hill and completed two small watercolour sketches of the view looking towards Ganaga Pass. It was overcast and chilly. Then the clouds cleared and within a minute or so the cold turned pleasantly warm and then it became uncomfortably hot. I gathered my kit and walked down the slope to a derelict house at the base of the koppie. As I sat down to do another sketch it started to rain. Hard! To protect my watercolours I put them in a fireplace in the ruin and stood in a doorway. When the rain passed I walked around the base of the hill. The rainclouds were moving from the West to East (right to left in the painting) and I took photos of a shower of rain moving across the landscape. This painting is based on these photos.

Watercolour on 300gm Arches Cold Pressed

460 x 610 mm

Here is the view from near the old farmhouse near which we stayed, looking towards Ganaga Pass. The derelict house in the previous painting is near the base of the reddish koppie in the middle distance on the left of the painting.