Old Love

Available at Chocolat Negro Recycled Design and Art.

The Courageous Ant

To ride a wild beast takes great courage!

I Don't Want To Let You Go

I do not, no I really really do not want to let you go

I want you to be mine forever and ever.

But I know I have to.

FOREST GIFTS

Summer is definitely here. Even if it is windy and stormy and the sea is cold.

There are all the signs of summers abundance around us. Not only moths, birds, bees and butterflies but also some delicious looking gifts from the forest.

The most beautiful thing to look at - and the most difficult to photograph. 

Get a peak under the umbrella of a summer mushroom. 

The golden warm color is so inviting. And the white flesh smelling of forest and moss. With pasta and garlic. Yummy.

If I just knew which ones to cook.

WINTER NOW

Everything is winter now in the Southern Hemisphere.

IN THE ABSTRACT

Sometimes when listening into conversations about art you might hear someone say that abstract art is of no worth to him. 

That only what can be seen in a realistic way can be considered art. 

That only what the spectator himself cannot create is true art and this is found in portraying realistically the environment. 

But the reduction to a combination of form and color is most powerful and creates high energetic vibrations in the spectator.

Considered apart from matter or from specific examples, not being concrete is abstract. Not being concrete creates these vibrations on a level that is often not even perceived by the spectator immediately.
Sometimes an awareness of  " what one saw and felt " comes only at a later stage.

In art abstract means generalized or universal as opposed to concrete, specific and representational.

These attributes open the minds of those who are ready. In the abstract lies enormous power.

Abstract art portrays the essence of some large object or whole.

In one dictionary the term abstract is defined as: to take away, to take away secretly, to withdraw and dis-engage the attention, interest etc.

In the abstract lies energetic power apart from concrete relation or embodiment.

By taking away the attention secretly the intuition awakes in the spectator.

Nature is the greatest and biggest creator of abstract art and I always turn to it for more inspiration.

SYMBIOSIS 2

A TOUCH OF PINK

A Touch of Pink in the right place makes a masterpiece

SHELTER ME

Everybody needs someone to shelter him. 

From the hot African sun or from a cold winter.

From hunger and pain. Be it physical or emotional.

From loneliness or excess.

From Ignorance and Arrogance. 

From People.

From life.

 Shelter can be found under a leaf, in a country,with people or in somebody's heart.

 But it is there. 

BOLD

AND BEAUTIFUL

MONSTERA DELICIOSA

OLD AND YOUNG

A BOWL OF WATER

Most of the big cities in the Eastern Cape have been put again under water restrictions from the side of the municipalities. It has not rained in our region since weeks, the water level in the dams has dropped to a critical point and when you leave the coast to drive inland the grass and vegetation is dry and of a yellowish color. The farmers are nervous and the " raintalk" is in everybody's mouth. 
The rates for water have gone up dramatically and my neighbour has just installed a huge plastic reservoir in his garden under his roof to catch rain water.

It is easy to understand the old desert saying " Water is  life " when you look at the land now. Water is life and costly.

Natures harvests and captures water wherever and whenever it can. Time again to think about the environment. 

Two Queens And An Old Lion From Africa

Bird of paradise flower or Crane flower or STRELITZIA REGINA

I just call them queens of Africa.

The Strelitzia is a striking flower, somewhat bird-like in shape consisting of long green bracts with purple edges that surround orange flowers with bright-blue tongues.

They are evergreen and indigenous with tight clusters of fleshy stems bearing long, oblong, grey - green leaves. 

They are Queens.

Broken Open.....

..

And the old lion in the bush.

Queens that can turn into old lions.

A life cycle.

A HOUSE OF SILK

To build yourself a house of silk, hang it in the trees and adorn it with dew drops is the birth right of long legged, light built creatures. How I would like to do that.!

The unbearable lightness of just hanging somewhere is entirely their's. 

This beauty was crowning the ceiling of my bedroom and after having taken lots of portraits of her lightness she gave me a decent shiver when deciding out of a sudden to let herself fall down and land next to me on the bed. The reason is only known to her.

MEET ME IN AUTUMN AND I WILL BE MORE BEAUTIFUL

A photograph is like a stage in a theater.

Once the curtain has fallen the spectator's eyes wander from side to side and from top to bottom to take in all the elements.The light, perspective and the colors. If your stage setting is right the spectator will stay with you and admire it over and over again.

Beautiful cameras and equipment are available today- hi -tech solutions for all photographic ambitions.

But I think to take a captivating photograph that resonates not only with yourself but with others as well you have to know what you want to see before taking the shot.

It has to be natural and to me it feels like the picture has to be first in your soul. What you have inside you, you see in the outside world. Then you know it is a match and that beautiful exceptional shot that no one can explain is created.

   

A NATURAL SCULPTURE

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

LIKE A PAINTER 'S PALETTE

I eat, drink and live color. I feed on it like a parasite. It is my daily bread. I crave color.

It adds the spice to my life that I need.

The painter' palette is what I call the Copperleaf or FIJIAN FIRE bush. When you drive through South-Africans cities you can see this bush crowning many gardens. It is one of the most popular species grown in South-Africa. 

The leaves are mottled orange, red and pink.

Slightly shaped like a heart, brown leaves with contrasting rose-pink markings.
Or reddish leaves with slightly paler markings.

And come closer now please. 

Still Closer. 

Every pattern and color combination that has been designed and then printed on silk, cotton, linen or any  fabric has been created by nature before. 

There is no greater artist than nature.

RAINDROPS AND GLASSBEADS

I truly believe that we live in an age now where more and more people develop a higher level of consciousness. More and more people awake to a broader, wider and more enlightened way of thinking that is in it's essence positive and more spiritual.

This is beautiful and very powerful. 

The combined power of changed thinking patterns of many are starting to have a great impact on our world and shape the conditions of our lives. It is known since thousands of years that thoughts are the parents of things. It has never been a secret.

It is now that many amongst us start to live and implement actively this knowledge. If I look around me I see it everywhere.

I have mentioned it before that this is not a blog to describe the socio-economic and political conditions that prevail at the moment in South-Africa. Of course I do live in the cradle of reform against oppression and there are many things on the political scene that I could talk about.

It is also not my mission to describe in detail things like the high crime rate or the poverty gap that exists still in this country. Newspapers and television take care of it and they are doing a good job.

There is no denial in this attitude but I am also convinced that we have to look today at what we want to see tomorrow. 

And tomorrow will be good if the things we look at are good and positive.  

I can feel that everything that I have ever looked in my life, no matter when and where and how young I was.... is still stored in my mind. Nothing is lost and nothing is forgotten although I might think it is. 

It is simply not retrievable because of the fact that I make not complete use of the capacity and the potential of my mind at the moment. 

So to me it makes sense that I have to be selective, very selective where I put my eyes - keeping in mind that everything that I see will burn an impression in my soul and will stay with me forever until the end of my life and longer. 

And this is why this blog looks most of the time at things and moments that are already perfect.

It looks at beauty that can be cultivated further in your mind.

It is my belief that if the things that we want are not yet there, are not present in our lives we can speed up the process by thinking intensely and perseverantly of them. By seeing them in the mind. By imaging their color, their smell, the way they look. By being very selective what we allow ourselves to think.

Rain in Africa is very special. If it rains in Africa people feel so good.  You search the sky if it is turning grey with clouds. The wind brings the smell of rain in the distance and you wish it would rain where you live. 

Where are in the raining season at the moment and these pictures were taken  in the early morning after a  night of rain.It was the type of rain that some call " land rain "  here. A gentle, soft but steady rain that allows the soil to soak up all the water.  The water does not flow away or gets lost. It's like a beauty treatment for the country.  

It was an amazing sight to look at the leaves of one bush early in the morning where raindrops were lined up around the edges of the leaves like strings of the most perfect glass pearls that Cinderella would have worn in her hair for her wedding. All the raindrops were aligned in a harmonious pattern and you could say in nearly the same distance to each other.

You can see more of my pictures in my virtual gallery: Chocolat Negro Flashlight

Or you can buy prints in my Etsy- Online Shop:  Chocolat Negro Recycled Design and Art