Harties at Dawn - Maree

“Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety.”
- Rene Daumal


watercolour in Ashrad hot-pressed 300gsm sketch-book (8" x 6")

A couple of months ago some friends invited us to spend a night with them at their place at Hartebeespoort Dam in the North-West Province (South Africa), so we drove over on the Sunday. Monday morning I was up early (we were leaving to go back home at about 9am) and did this sketch from their front lawn. The sun hadn't quite appeared yet and a light mist hung over the dam (not that I managed to capture that!) but the air was clear and crisp and I wished that we could have stayed longer...

Harties in Winter - Maree

"Hear! hear!" screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, "winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it!" 

~Henry David Thoreau, 28 November 1858 journal entry

Hartebeespoort Dam (also known as Harties and one of my favourite sketching spots) in Winter certainly is a different kettle of fish altogether! Beautiful greens, bright blues and lilacs are now replaced with dull yellows, browns and smoky blues. Even the water seems to have lost its lustre and sunsets are hazy and filled with smoke from bush fires in surrounding areas.

The side closest to the Village of Kosmos seemed to see winter earlier than the rest of the dam and I did this sketch on a visit to friends living in K'Shane, where the roads were thick with dust which clung to all the leaves and vegetation.

Bend in the river - Maree

Runs all day but never walks
Often murmurs, never talks.
It has a bed but never sleeps,
It has a mouth but never eats.

Crooked as a snake,
Slick as a plate
Ten thousand horses
Can't pull it straight.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Mark Twain



Just before the Crocodile River flows into the Hartebeespoort Dam, it makes a quirky little bend, flowing past some houses on a hill-top. These residences don't have a view of the dam, but the view of the river must be equally pleasing. How blessed are those with stunning views like this!

Hartebeespoort Dam - Maree

“Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi


"Hartebeespoort Dam"

I've written so much about the area of Hartebeespoort Dam (in the North-West Province of South Africa), where I love to go and sketch, that I decided to post this large painting I did of the dam late in 2009. From where you're sitting looking at the pic on the screen, would be about where the Squire's restaurant is. We normally sit on the deck with this wonderful view of the dam and I had the whole restaurant in uproar, setting up my easel on the edge of the deck and painting this scene! Hubby was slightly uncomfortable in the beginning, but then settled in, bringing me my glass of Coke Light from time to time!

Road through Hartebeesthoek

“Remember that happiness is a way of travel -- not a destination.”



Another one of the roads we meander along on our way to Harties. This one goes through Hartebeesthoek (a Hartebeest is a type of Gnu, and "hoek" means corner), where the Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) is situated, and it is the only major radio astronomy observatory in Africa.

The Observatory began as Deep Space Station 51, built in 1961 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America. The station tracked many unmanned US space probes. These included the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter spacecraft which landed on the Moon or mapped it from orbit, the Mariner missions which explored the planets Venus and Mars and the Pioneers which measured the Sun's winds. The station was handed over to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1975 and was converted to a radio astronomy observatory. In 1988 the observatory became a National Facility operated by the Foundation for Research Development (FRD). In 1999 the FRD was restructured as the National Research Foundation (NRF).


The observatory is equipped with a single 260 ton radio telescope with a main reflecting surface diameter of 26 metres. The telescope is equipped with radio receivers operating in the microwave band at wavelengths of 18cm, 13cm, 6cm, 4.5cm, 3.5cm, 2.5cm and 1.3cm.

Scene at Harties - Maree

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.
- John Muir



You might have noticed that Hartebeespoort Dam (also known as Harties) holds a special fascination for me. The scenery possibilities are endless, ranging from location, to the time of day and the change of light.

Most of the time, like this one, I stop for a quick sketch on our way there, other times I will work off one of my photographs. Here I did a quick sketch in my Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook, made some notes on colour and finished it off later in the afternoon.

Road to Harties - Maree Clarkson

"Road to Hartebeespoort Dam" in Moleskine Watercolour Notebook


Notes for 'Road to Hartebeespoort Dam' in Moleskine Watercolour Notebook

We often take a drive out to Hartebeespoort Dam in the North-West Province (South Africa), which borders Gauteng, just under an hour's drive from us. We prefer to take the scenic route, staying away from the main roads and all the traffic, using a gravel road crossing over a mountain, reveling in all the wild life we spot on the way.

The once sleepy village of Schoemansville, which has always been one of the major tourist attractions in the area, is now buzzing with activity and new developments, but has still managed to maintain most of it's original charm.