Bluegum view

W&N watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm 

The Tarlton landscape (Gauteng, South Africa) is dominated by eucalyptus trees, which were originally brought here from Australia for the mining industry. A third of our smallholding is covered in an old blue gum plantation and provided me with an endless supply of sketching matter. This is the view from just outside our property fence.

Veld fire over the Mountains

"Man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself."

~ Rachel Carson

W&N watercolours on Bockingford 300gsm, no sketching - 11" x 7.5" - unframed

Winter is looming and soon it'll be time to be cutting our fire-breaks again. Every Winter we have this veldfire (bush fire) phenomena, spectacular, yet devastating at the same time. Such a great loss in animal life, yet so necessary for the health of our ecology... Many of our plants will not flower until they have been ravaged by fire and many of the fires ARE naturally caused by lightning, but it is man's carelessness that causes fires in areas that are not ready for it yet that is the most heart-breaking.

This is a depiction of the fires raging over the hills of Magaliesburg and Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa), where I live.

Framed Prints, mounted or Laminated and Canvas prints as well as Greeting cards and Postcards available on my RedBubble Site

ITEM ID : VeldfireMountains
PRICE - R350.00 including postage in S.A.

Winter setting in

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”
- Anton Chekhov

"Winter Setting In" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©
Size - 11" x 8" unframed

Although the lawn in my garden is still thick and green from all the rain we've had, the veld and roadside is starting to show the effects of Winter - all the Cosmos is gone and the tall thatching grass is yellow and dry, just waiting for the first careless cigarette to be flicked out of a car window - this Black Wattle tree still hasn't recovered from the ravages of last year's fires and got a second dose when the property owner did his fire-break this week. Pity, but fire-breaks are a necessary evil if we are going to be protecting our properties from these, sometimes dangerous, fires.

ITEM ID : WinterSettingIn
PRICE - R850.00 including postage in South Africa

Autumn in Tarlton - Commission (SOLD)

“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolour, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.”
- Stanley Horowitz

"Autumn in Tarlton"

This painting was a commission from a friend to do another painting of her garden after I did a small sketch of her garden "Autumn setting in" (which you can see in the previous post). It was my first commission for years and I was scared out of my wits that she wouldn't like it, but luckily she was absolutely thrilled!

The original is watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - 30" x 18" - (SOLD)

Buy a Framed Print, Poster or Greeting card - click below :

Framed print for sale on RedBubble

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Black Wattles in Tarlton - SOLD

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Black Wattles in Tarlton" - watercolour on Moleskine 200gsm - Maree©
Size - 12" x 8" unframed - SOLD

The Black Wattle trees on our smallholding in Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa, which we are trying our utmost to eradicate, have put up the most spectacular show of browns with their millions of seed-pods in between the greens. How can we even begin to think to destroy such beauty? Yet, for the survival of our own indigenous flora, it is a task we undertake every year in a bid to save some of our own natural growth.

Read more about the Black Wattle struggle HERE.

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At the edge of the Quarry - SOLD

Life is like a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
- Samuel Butler


"At the edge of the quarry" - watercolour on Moleskine 200gsm - Maree©
Size : 12" x 6" unframed - SOLD


About 2km from us is the Tarlton Brickyard - hectares of ground that have been dug up and soil removed for the making of bricks, leaving the earth pitted with deep holes and piles of heaped ground and smoking kilns where the bricks are being baked.

Some might say it's an eye-sore or a scar on Mother Earth's crust, and I could agree, but besides providing the building industry with the necessary raw materials for our housing needs, this quarry provides endless hours of pleasure to off-road motorbike enthusiasts who race along the holes and over steep mounds of earth, flying through the air like movie stunt men! Horse riders also like to visit, putting their steeds through their paces, using it as a cross-country course. Not all's bad that seems bad!


A brick-making kiln in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

ITEM ID : Quarry1
PRICE - R850.00 including postage

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Tarlton stream at sunrise

“An ant may well destroy a whole dam.”

- Chinese Proverbs

"Tarlton stream at sunrise" - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©
Size : 12" x 8"

Tarlton and surrounds in Gauteng, South Africa, offers a wide variety of landscapes for the artist to sketch - from flat Savannah to rolling hills covered in indigenous trees and tracts of Blue Gum forests planted originally for the mining industry to flower, vegetable, cattle and ostrich farms. I managed to capture the sunrise on yesterday morning (yes, I was out there at 5am! doing a rough sketch and finishing it off once I got home).

This stream in Tarlton was once again flowing after the vast amounts of rain we've been having, but with no hope of filling the dam as it disappeared through the broken dam wall.

ITEM ID : SunriseTarlton1

Tarlton Stream

“To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.”
- Bertrand Russell

Tarlton Stream - watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©
Size - 12" x 9"

The little stream feeding the Tarlton Dam has been dry for years, but after the recent good rains we have had, it is once again flowing, rushing forward as if looking forward to its destination. Sadly, the dam will not fill up this time, as someone thought it wise to break the dam wall down and allow the water to flow into nowhere, drying up quickly as the feed slows down. It is sad that a part of Tarlton's landscape is forever changed through this action and soon it will be nothing but a dry watercourse again.

ITEM ID : TarltonStream