I have not had much time for blogging lately but I am still around. This painting of an African Lady Titled "African Beauty" is my latest piece. It is quite a large mixed media painting, acrylic and oil 1m x 70 cm on stretched canvas.

The photo does not do it enough justice, I took quite a few but just could not get it right. I am not sure if it was the lighting but I tried various settings, with a flash and without and eventually chose the best of a not so good bunch of photo's.

So far this has been my best year for sales, I was hoping to build up a reasonable stock for the Fifa world cup football tournament starting in a weeks time. Unfortunately though just about everything is sold and I only have a few pieces available.

Right now our city seems soccer mad and the tourists and teams are starting to pile in for the extravaganza; and the leisurely pace that I work at will only produce a few more paintings before it ends in a months or so.

I hope you enjoy the painting.

Nguni Cattle

I painted this montage of Nguni cattle in acrylic for my cousin. The Nguni cattle are the beautiful cattle of the Zulu nation indigenous to South Africa. They are renowned for their fertility and resistance to disease. The variegated skin colours can present many different skin patterns and a variety of horn shapes.

These cattle play an important social and economic role in the rural societies and are also used to pay a brides dowry. They are also a measure of wealth and importance for the individuals who own them as well as for their village as whole.

The once mighty Zulu King Chaka understood the cultural and economic importance of these cattle and seized control of all the Nguni cattle in his domain and bred them according to their colour patterns to produce skins and rawhide shields for the various regiments of his army for easy recognition. His personal guards attire was from the pure white Nguni cattle of the royal herd.