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On a still April day, I’m sitting under a tree at the Landskein wine estate near Stanford. I’m well shielded from the delicious late summer heat. Not for the first time, I’m trying to paint a clump of bluegum trees at the top of a small incline.

A challenging motif, as it turns out, and even Cleo seems apprehensive. I started this painting last year and putting it on the easel again, I see it looks rather washed out. I’ve mixed in too much titanium white – a frequent bad habit. So I re – do the cobalt sky, a shade darker. Its not cobalt exactly, there’s a touch of magenta in there, and maybe a bit of raw sienna. And then everything else gets a going over, adding more contrast. But no matter what I do, I can’t seem to grasp the bull by the horns. The clumps of leaves arrange themselves in marshmallow shapes at the end of spindly branches. Or umbrella shapes. Yes, that’s it….umbrella shapes….hang on, marshmallow shapes AND umbrella shapes …no wait, marshmallow shapes WITHIN umbrella shapes….jeepers I don’t know what I’m doing. Time to take a break, take Cleo for a dip in the dam.

She loves retrieving things from the water. Her joy is infectious and my mood improves. Landskein (formerly the Robert Stanford Estate) is under new management and it’s looking good. They’ve built an amphitheatre and upgraded all manner of things. A large flock of plump Maggie Laubscher-type geese own the waterways, and there is the reassuring cluck of the scuffling Nguni chickens. There are coots on the dams and susurations of starlings in the trees, gathering themselves. Ah yes, April in the heavenly land.

Back to my bluegums. The stems of the trees are improbably thin. I thicken them a bit, taking note of the tones: mainly a mid- grey with intense patches of sunlight on the boughs – almost a pure white in places. But mostly grey, right? Or maybe not. There’s a lot of red there. Perhaps I should exaggerate that a bit….mmm, wait, more of a bluish tint, surely? So look, why am I painting this thing anyway? Well, it has a monumentality to it. That’s what I’m trying to capture here. But there’s also this delicate, curvy way the branches extend heavenwards. And to depict that, one needs to comprehend the entire structure, without losing the particularities. Jeepers, it’s worse than a portrait. I’m failing all over the place. The sour mood returns. I decide to call it a day.

Such is the lot of the dilletante plein – air painter. Painterly satisfaction remains elusive. I need to spend more time at the coalface, thats all there is to it. I’m thinking about cranky old Cezanne and his mad unbending determination. Up and down the French countryside, endless views of Mont Sainte-Victoire. No distractions. Not that I’d like to emulate his work. Far rather his walk.