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Winter in the Klein Karoo. I am walking through open country, towards the Touws Rivier. The beechwood easel is slung over my shoulder and little Cleo is trotting up front. I’m heading for a small cliff that I may like to paint. It feels right, moving through the stones and scrub, with the odd cloud scudding overhead. It takes a while to settle on something – I am spoilt for choice and can’t decide. There’s no water in the river, and the riverbed is what I settle on. The view up the riverbed, with the stones and the dark shadow under that acacia tree is what catches my eye.
I clear away some of the pebbles and start to inhabit my painting space. As usual I have no real idea of how to proceed. The main thing is to get going, so after emptying the tea flask, I lay in some of the darker shapes. It’s always this: big shapes to smaller shapes, dark tones first, hang on to the bigger brushes as long as possible. I have no further method, and after an hour or so I’ll be involved in all sorts of unexpected improvisations, fending off disaster. The difficulty of this plein air thing is all too apparent in my clumsy first steps. I cling to the sense that I can get this right – with only a vague notion of what that looks like . Whilst painting I’m haunted by images I hold in my mind, by artists who are both daunting and inspiring. Obscurely, today I’m thinking about a Nineteenth Century French landscapist called Frederic Bazille. The landscape at Chailly (below) was done in in 1865. Monet, Sisley and Pisarro, amongst others, were all experimenting with plein air painting at that time, but the full – on Impressionist phase of broken brushwork was still to come.
As I paint, a cold front sneaks in from the South. The light is much more diffuse now. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s kind of different to how it was an hour ago. That dog of mine has started wandering in ever wider circles, and so is my concentration. Time to pack it in. Maybe later on in the studio I’ll be able to work it up into something acceptable…..
The Aramex delivery van pulled up at the aging artist’s house. Yes, here was the beechwood plein – air easel that he had ordered online! To be honest, it wasn’t as if the aging artist needed another easel, he already had more than one. It was just the look of beechwood that made him do it.
Strangely, the artist didn’t open the package. He let it stand in his studio. For a week, and then another week. And a few more. The unopened package leaned in a corner of the studio, its bright yellow stickers glaring at him.
Autumn came and went, and then the winter rain started. The view out of the studio window was anything but inspiring.
It was then that the aging artist with his sore knee remembered a place, a place to go to if the sun ever came out again.
It was a farmhouse near Napier, on a road called “Oskop Pad.” Yes, this farmhouse set in the wheatfields and now deserted, this would be the first place to set up the beechwood easel. The sore knee went away. The artist was ready. All he needed was the sun.
People often ask me what kind of work I do as a painter. I usually just say I’m a landscape painter. Everyone has some notion of what that is, and indeed I do paint landscapes. But I also paint things that are renderings of ideas, and these two things, being a painter of the thing seen, and being a painter of the thing imagined, are two poles of my artistic life. I veer between them. I spent the first half of the year working out various “idea” paintings – and now I need to have a good look at the great outdoors again.
I’m at the water’s edge, and huge winter clouds hang moodily over Walker Bay. It’s late afternoon and the light is beautiful. As the sun goes lower, all sorts of pink and yellow hues will permeate sky and ocean, presenting immense and daunting possibilities for the humble painter.
I’ve been looking at stuff in Hermanus for well over a decade. I go most evenings and do a quick drawing or a watercolour, the trusty Africanis hound by my side. We have our favourite spots on the beach or along the cliff path.
These are sketchbooky things, and truth be told, we are nothing like Mr Monet, who laboured incessantly in the wind and rain, “clad like the men of the coast, covered in sweaters, boots, and wrapped in a hooded slicker, his easel tied down with ropes and stones.”
No, we often just park out in the cosy cabin of my 2006 Nissan X Trail. I can see plenty of stuff from there, thank you very much.
But today I’m outside, on the fabulous Cliff Path, and I’m using oil paints, pretending to be a plein – air painter. (“en Plein air “- the French term denoting working outdoors. It just sounds arty .)
I set myself up and without too much scratching of the head, I get going. I have a piece of cardboard to paint on. That’s my way of overcoming the fear of the pristine canvas. Cardboard is actually a great surface to work on – ask Simon Stone. I meet a photographer called Leanne Stander and next thing she ‘s photographing the artist at work. Then a wandering Spanish bloke also has to take a pic. Why? Did he think he was seeing a great artist at work? Or did he perhaps think he had come across something rather quaint and antiquated, like a model T Ford ? Suddenly my quiet little Sunday afternoon oil-painting experiment is becoming a performance. Help! I’m under scrutiny!
Soon, however, it’s just me staring towards Gansbaai, trying to figure out those shades of aquamarine in the rapidly-changing light.
The cloud on the horizon gets steadily closer, and I pull out a little 15 x 30 cm canvas panel, putting down some dashes of colour as the rain drifts in. Suddenly I’m having a true plein-air moment: wet paint all over the show, rain dripping from the brim of my hat, gathering together my stuff and scuttling for cover. It’s quite exhilarating, this fresh air business. I think I’ll be giving it another go.
Travels with Pierneef 