We were on our way through Northern Transvaal, to our next stop-over place, to stay for another few days.

What else?

After seeing and having such fun at the huge old baobab tree, the dry open countryside didn’t seem so exciting. Almost a feeling of a let-down! 

Or was it just my mood? We had seen so much and had such a wonderful time. How would the rest of our trip be like? 

As the car speed along,

“Come on, behave yourself!” I said to myself, “There must be some beautiful scene out there that I could photograph and perhaps paint someday!?”  

Our daughter could see I wished to take some photos of the passing scenery, so she stopped the car for me. Stopping the car doesn’t always give you a straight-up perfect scene, you have to hunt around a bit to get that. 

 

With the first (left) photo in the collage, I had to walk off the road and down a steep embankment, to take that bushy snapshot.  

• If you look carefully, sometimes a scene like that can be changed into an abstract painting by contrasting tones and colours. 

At another stop, when our daughter stopped the car, I walked up and down the road, trying to get better angled shots. This is all I could find: 

And a little later on, I took this photo: 

It seems not all my effort was lost. Out of the photos I took that day, I did at least get one that I could paint. Here it is: 

An oil painting of the dry Northern Transvaal:

 

Looking down from the road, I must admit the composition was somewhat compromised. It’s not advisable to leave out the base of a tree in a painting.  

But in this case I didn’t have much of an option. The main part of the tree had a silly unbalanced shape. An odd shaped branch sticking out over the countryside! But as you can see, it acts perfectly as a frame to the scene. 

• I had fun slashing a long thin brush, here and there, to get those finicky twigs and foreground grass. 
• What’s also fascinating to do, is inter-playing warm and cool colours to achieve soft-blurred shadows. 

Lodging at the Bali:

Moving on, we drove through the town of Haenertsburg, and going south into the countryside, we booked into a B&B. A quaint homely place perched on the hillside and partly surrounded by forest. 

Our rooms were lovely and the beds just right for `Mommy and Daddy bear’ and of cause `Baby bear’! So it wasn’t so surprising that we slept soundly, comfy and happily until morning. 

The next day:

We were up and early in the morning, to see the famous flower festival in the town. And what a spectacle it was… but that I will show you in our next travel post!