The place where I live - Maree

This little stream flowing through Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa) near where I live provides me with hours of enjoyable sketching. It’s mostly dried up now, but with strong rains the water still flows, passing under the R24 and some telephone lines, meandering through Oaktree and Sterkfontein, ending up joining the Crocodile River in Muldersdrift on it’s way to Hartebeespoort Dam. 

This area is rich in sketching material as we border on the Cradle of Humankind, the Sterkfontein Caves and the Wonder Caves, with many game reserves, dams, lakes, rivers, airports and other tourist attractions. You can see a map of where I live and some of the attractions HERE and things to do HERE.

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Under A Telephone Pole - Maree

W&N watercolour and black ink sketch in a hand-made sketchbook with linen, satin-finish paper 

Here in the rural area where I live in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa, telephone poles are becoming a thing of the past. The copper wire has been stolen so many times that Telkom has abandoned the land-line system and resorted to a satellite telephone system. I’ll miss the poles and lines in the landscape, they provided great perches for birds of prey and congregating swallows before they leave on their great winter migration up North. 

I AM a copper wire slung in the air,

Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow

Night and day I keep singing—humming and thrumming:

It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the

tears, the work and want,

Death and laughter of men and women passing through

me, carrier of your speech,

In the rain and the wet dripping, in the dawn and the

shine drying,

A copper wire.

- Carl Sandburg

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A Gathering in the cold - Maree

 

Ink sketch and watercolour in DalerRowney 220gsm Nature Journal 

Freezing cold weather here in South Africa and on the way to Magaliesburg to buy some new art materials I was wondering why all these crows were gathering on the telephone lines. Maybe some carrion just out of sight behind the shrubs...? Or were they just basking in the sun for warmth? 

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