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SOLOMON

I have just completed my latest painting!!

I wasn't sure what the title should be. I thought that this very distinguished looking old gentleman had an air of wisdom, strength and dignity about him and that he has probably seen so much in his lifetime.

I picture him telling stories to young children of the way it was when he was a child and how NEW isn't always BETTER and encouraging them to find joy in the simple things in life and to never take anything for granted.

So I put it out there... you know, on facebook....

Status: This is my latest painting. It needs a name ... any suggestions?

Well I got some great ones: Wisdom, Oom Sarel, There was an old man with a beard..., Man of Dignity, Papa, Time meets History, Lekker ou Jan, ‎Gogo Solomon



        Medium: Acrylic on Canvas                       FOR SALE                             Size: 40 x 40cm         



I think he is very wise and if Wisdom had a name it would be

"SOLOMON"

Music to my ears

Finally, the words I've been waiting to hear: "Mommy, please will you teach me to draw."

Not that I haven't offered many times but my 8 year old son has been adamant until now that he is a very good artist and as such is not in need of any help in this department.

Why would you need to be taught to do something you're really good at already??

It's a fair question...

Well I hope that I will succeed in teaching him much more than how to draw. Like the fact that because it's easy to do the stuff that comes naturally to us, the God-given talents and abilities we are born with, we could so easily just settle with being "good enough" and never really want to do better and to be the best we can be at those talents. I never want him to strive to be better than anyone else but just to be the best HE he can be.

Hold thumbs - It's no small task assuming to teach a REALLY GOOD ARTIST how to draw.

He IS really good...

These paintings were all done when he was 7 - 7 and a half years of age.

The drawings are more recent. I just think he has a really cool style and is so creative. He never copies other pictures - he stores images in his mind and then draws them...so cool!

Winter Warmers

Winter is well on its way!! The first chills are reminding me that it's time

to get out the old crochet hook again...

There are some amazing crochet sites out there. My favourites:

Sukigirl is very fun and creative ; Amigurumi is the japanese art of crocheting small toys - this is not so easy but it's great fun and very rewarding work when you get it right!!; Crochet Pattern Central has just about any pattern you could imagine!

I had thought of making some bunnies and colourful eggs for Easter but where does one find the time?! If only I didn't need those 8 hours sleep a night - Oh the things I could do...

A Few Favourites

These are some of my favourite paintings...

At the top we have "Princess" - I painted this a few years ago for an auction held to raise funds for an organisation here in Cape Town called Ikhaya Le Themba who do amazing work into the under-priviledged communities in training people up in home-based care for those who are ill with HIV, TB or other debilitating diseases. This as well as managing many community upliftment projects makes them an incredible group to support in their initiatives.

The painting of the two men called "Strength" was done the following year for them as well.

The little girl in the box called "Banõs Baby" was done when my husband and I returned from a 6 month back-packing / volunteer trip to South America in 2000. I took the photo of this little baby sitting in her "playpen" while her mom manned her stall at a market. She seemed quite happy to sit in her little box...

All of my paintings are acrylic on canvas and the above are around 1m x 750cm.

A Prophetic Picture

A few years ago our church Joshua Generation held an exhibition and all the

artisits were given a canvas to paint something.

Our son, Neo, was 2 years old at the time and so the song quickly sprang to mind: "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, Red and Yellow, Black & White, They are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."

So I started looking for images of Red, Yellow & Black kids since I had the

White all wrapped up in Neo.

As the date of the exhibition drew nearer, the size of the canvas (120 x 90cm), scarcity of good Red & Yellow children's images and precious little free time (did I mention I had a two year old?), left me with the realisation that Jesus may well love all the colours of all the children but for this exhibition it was gonna be just Black & White!

A prophetic picture as it so turned out. 2 years later we adopted our brown little girl.

Nina & Neo



Just as well I never got around to painting Red & Yellow...



A Small Start

I recently participated in a fund-raiser for a very worthy cause. A group called EveryONE Counts held an exhibition to raise funds towards the work they do in caring for abandoned babies in Durban, South Africa.

The initiative was taken by a South African mother and Durban based artist, Lara Mellon, who was so deeply moved by the overwhelming need that she sent out the call to artists from around the world to stand together in creative support of these unwanted lives by pledging a personal artwork. "Just one unwanted baby, just one abandoned life is too many. Finding new born babies ant-eaten, starving and traumatized to the point that for the first couple of hours they are unable to feed ... is one too many!" says Lara. The response was overwhelming and pledges from artists all over the world streamed in amounting to well over 500 and all monies raised through the sale of these artworks will be used for the care and protection of abandoned lives. Each artwork speaks as the voice for one of these abandoned babies. When I saw the photo of this young mom and the accompanying tag on a blog (The Ranting Boomer) I knew this what was I had to paint.

Corneille will never forget the night she left her aunt's house to fetch water and was attacked and raped. She'd crawled back to her aunt's house and said nothing, ashamed. She says her baby, named Joy, is the only brightness in her future. Corneille is only 13.

We don't have to look far to see the needs that are all around us everyday. Sometimes it's so overwhelming that we have to harden our hearts or look away. We feel helpless wishing there was something we could do but sure we couldn't possibly do anything to make a real difference.

Well as small as it may be, I made a difference. By participating along with 500 plus artists from around the world using the God-given talents we are blessed with. It wasn't difficult, it wasn't inconvenient, it was a JOY.

So now I'm starting to ask myself: " What can I do next to make a difference in the life of someone who is unable to help themself? "

Let's all start to look for opportunities to care for the poor, the orphaned, the needy, the down-trodden and the helpless.

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." Helen Keller