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ABOUT

I live in Pretoria and have been painting in watercolour, acrylic and oil for many years. 

 

I started drawing when I was four years old and did my first oil painting when I was nine years old. When my mother saw that I was interested in art, she sent me to an art school in the city centre of Pretoria, which I attended for two years. When I was about nine years old my mother bought me an oil painting set and an easel, which I still have to this day. I still have some of the tubes of oil paint from that set, but most are dry. I also have a self-portrait and a portrait of a red Indian that I painted just after I got the set, as well as one or two paintings I did a few years later.

 

I started painting acrylics at the age of 24 and with watercolour a few years later, while on Gough Island, a lonely island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where I was stationed as part of a weather team. 

 

Upon my return from Gough Island, I was accepted as a member of the Pretoria Art Route. During that time, I also enrolled at the Open Window Art School. At that time open Window Art School was still in a house in Moreletta Park. I also attended oil painting classes under Johan Grobler, a well-known wildlife artist.

 

I studied journalism at the University of South Africa and did a higher diploma in Tertiary Education at the University of Pretoria. I worked as a sub-editor and reporter at the Transvaler newspaper for ten years. I also worked at several magazines such as Lantern, Salvo and Game & Hunt magazines as an editor. I also learned how to do graphic design and magazine layouts on the computer. I published my own magazine for 17 years. I wrote and published two books and helped others to publish their books. I am currently a full-time artist, graphic designer and life coach.

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At an exhibition with my youngest daughter.

When I was nine years old, my mother bought me an oil colour set that I still have, although most of the oil tubes are dry. This self-portrait is my first-ever painting in oil.

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Well, quite crude, but at least there is some resemblance and I was only nine!

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Later I did this pencil sketch of myself in Gade 1. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it got me commissions from friends and family members to sketch their dogs, family members or girlfriends. Since then I have done many portraits in pencil and watercolour.

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