An old friend returns....

Sometimes you get to see old work that you have not seen for ages, and cringe to see how amateurish it looks compared to what you are doing now... in a way this is not all negative, as it at least indicates progress. On the other hand, some early works still resonate, for whatever reason, and it is like finding an old friend. This painting, one of my very early ones done around 2000, came back to me recently when my daughter moved and was unable to hang it in the new house, and it still speaks to me. Even though there is a lot I could do to improve it, I somehow think if I tried, something would get lost in the process, some naive quality that just highlights how I relished the backlit pink grass. That field is still one of my favourite spots to drive past on the N2 near Jeffries Bay, and I have enjoyed watching the line of trees in the background grow from the young saplings they were when this was painted, into an avenue of real trees now.



cows in pink grass  oil on canvas circa 2000

The aloe and cows in the painting were not in the original source photo, I added them from other pix, but when I took the photo below several years later, I deliberately positioned myself to include one of the aloes on the roadside, so that it would be in a similar position to that in the painting, a sort of reversal where a painting became source material for a photo rather than the other way around!


this pic of the field was taken several years after the original, in 2006, by then the trees were teenagers, but the pink grass was just as stunning, it is at its best in mid May and I always look forward to an opportunity to drive past at this time of the year.

A friend has just photographed the field this weekend, it is great to see that it is looking just as pretty, has not been ploughed up or had some hideous housing development plonked in the middle of it, the only difference is the line of trees which has matured some more. Thanks Caroline Morgan, nice to see this old friend again!



same field 2012