Central California Coast

These are a few of the things I found during our week staying near San Luis Obispo, California. Before packing my bags to fly home to Iowa, I gathered my treasures in one place.

Central Coast California Treasures

Hiking along the craggy coastline of the Point Buchon Trail was a highpoint of our trip. It was a calm and sunny day. I drew from the edge of the cliff, the roiling surf glistened below and the barking of unseen sea lions serenaded me. This is a place I yearn to return to, again and again. 

Point Buchon Trail, Again

From the house where we stayed, soft morning light washed over the sparsely treed hills.

Hills Above Edna Valley, Morning

After the rain - Maree

All was silent as before -
All silent save the dripping rain.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We've had some beautiful rain to end the season - for the past couple of weeks we've had heavy afternoon showers virtually every day and the ground is so saturated that puddles collect next to all the farm roads. We've had this before, with rains carrying on well into May and even June, which is peculiar for us, as Gauteng (South Africa) is a summer rainfall area.

Summer in Hillside - Maree

“It is summer, it is the solstice

the crowd is cheering,

the crowd is laughing

in detail

permanently, seriously

without thought.”

- William Carlos Williams

The beginning of summer in Tarlton is always a mixture of old dead grass left over from the winter and green shining through the landscape blackened by the winter's veld fires - this is a friend's smallholding not far from us up in Hillside (Tarlton, South Africa).

Tarlton Scenery - Maree

“May brooks and trees and singing hills join in the chorus too, and every gentle wind that blows send happiness to you.”
- Irish Blessing



A scene not far from where I live - a gravel road through Tarlton on the way to Randfontein. It's a short-cut we often take past all the veggie and flower farms, the rubbish dump where all the Seagulls (600km from the coast!) gather and where tall Blue gum trees flank the road.

The Mulder's Drift - Maree

"The Mulder's Drift" - ink sketch and watercolour in Moleskine sketch-book

The area of Tarlton is surrounded by a plethora of streams and little rivers, many originating as storm water flow offs from Randfontein, Krugersdorp and Roodepoort or from springs emerging in various vleis (swamp lands) situated all over the Witwatersrand. This little stream, known as the Mulder's Drift, originates somewhere in Strubensvalley, and flows through the sleepy village of Muldersdrift on its way to join the Crocodile River, eventually ending up at Hartebeespoort Dam, from where the overflow joins South Africa's biggest River, the Orange River, which passes the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert and winds through the Namib Desert before draining into the Atlantic Ocean at Alexander Bay, South Africa.

Below you can see where this humble little stream ends up!


The Orange River mouth and wetland on the coast of Namibia. At the mouth of the river are rich alluvial diamond beds. A sandbar at its mouth limits navigation, but the river is used extensively for irrigation.

Field in Oaktree - Maree

To dig in one's own earth, with one's own spade,
does life hold anything better?
- Beverly Nichols



About 10km from us, on the way to Kromdraai, lies the farming area of Oaktree, spreading across valleys and hills. Within kilometers are the world-renowned Sterkfontein Caves, from where the Magalies River originates, which surfaces at the eye on Maloney's Eye Farm near Magaliesburg.

I pass this gate quite often on my way to Clearwater Mall, some 40km away, always just catching a glimpse of what's on the other side as I drive by. The other day I stopped and peered over the gate, taking in the lands and the track leading to, the house maybe? I did a quick outline sketch and finished it off from memory when I got home.

Thorn tree - Maree

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)



There are few more striking symbols of Africa than a thorn tree - its gnarled branches, graceful form, jagged thorns and abundant blooms, in many ways reflecting the paradoxes of the continent.

This Umbrella Thorn (Acacia tortilis) stands in one corner of my garden and offers a safe haven for many birds who seek a safe place to nest. It's still fairly young, about 5 years old, and I'm looking forward to a full-blown specimen in a couple of years' time.

Umbrella Thorn - Acacia tortilis
The Umbrella Thorn Acacia grows in Africa. There are over 700 species of the Acacia in Africa. Umbrella Thorn Acacia is one of the most recognizable trees of the African savanna. It grows in sand dunes and rocky grounds of Africa's grasslands. Acacias grow in areas with annual rainfall as low as 4cm. This tree can survive in 50°C temperatures during the day, and freezing temperatures at nights. The savanna that the Acacias live in is hot and dry in the respective summer of the Southern Hemisphere although at night the temperature can go below -18°C. During the winter months the savanna gets a lot of rain. The Umbrella Thorn grows up to 20 meters high and has a spreading, flat-tapped crown that gives it its name. (Info from Wikipedia)


A fully grown Umbrella Thorn in the South African bushveld.

My Neighbour's House - Maree

Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic energy striving, but it comes to us slowly and quietly and all the time.
- Brenda Ueland



My neighbour's house... half hidden by a huge, gnarled old Oak. I was half-way up his driveway, which is about 300m long, sketching the scene, when he came driving down in his bakkie (our term for an LDV, the 'a' being pronounced as in 'bucky', weird, but true!) - he didn't mind at all, and asked to see the sketch when it was finished, which led to him buying it when I showed it to him a week later!

Just an explanation of the long driveways - the size of our properties here in Tarlton is 8,5ha (or 21 acres or 10 morgen), which normally translates to a front width of approximately 200 meters and a depth or length of 600 meters, and most houses are either right at the back or half-way up the property. Sometimes, like ours, the house is in the front of the property, close to the road, leaving the full length of the back of the property for some farming activity.

We do not do any farming, but half of the property was planted with Eragrostis by the previous owner, a perennial grass used as fodder for horses and cattle, and plays host to a variety of birds, one being a little bird similar to the reed warbler, building it's nest by tying the long grass stalks together. A quarter is taken up by our living area and a quarter contains a Blue gum forest, planted in the early 20th Century for use by the mining industry. This forest is where I spend a great deal of time sketching the trees.

Winter trees

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease,

avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.

But he cannot save them from fools.

- John Muir

These two trees are on our smallholding, one on each side of the fence, and this was done when we were still firmly in the grip of Winter. Although the Blue gums are evergreen, they seem to take on a winter jacket and mourn with the rest of nature the loss of greenery and colour. In summer, although they don't have any extra leaves, they seem to shout out "summer is back!"

Harrismith - Maree Clarkson

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.”
- Alice Walker


"Harrismith landscape" - Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - size 12" x 8.5"

I drive down to Ballito on the North Coast of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, about 6 or 7 times a year, and have done this route along the N3 South for so many years, the scenery is etched into my mind. During June/July, our winter months, the Drakensberg mountains in the distance are covered with snow and makes for a beautiful sight.

Passing through the Free State, you come upon the town of Harrismith, close to the border of KwaZulu Natal, which is one of the major stops for fuel on this 670km trip (about 420 miles). Here the landscape changes dramatically from miles and miles of totally flat farming landscape to mountain vistas and an area called "The Valley of a 1000 Hills", and there are thousands of hills as you descend down Van Reenen's Pass for the next 20 kilometers or so towards the coastal region.

I did this watercolour from memory.

Sketch in Agenda Art Journal - Maree

"Exploring space and colour"

I have this old, leather bound, 1997 Agenda Planner that is now filled with various grades of watercolour paper cut to size and some old note paper, which I use as an art journal. I did the above sketch on one of the note papers to try out a new green I was mixing using Thalo Blue and Burnt Sienna and was quite pleased with how the green turned out. I also experimented with Indigo and Cadmium Yellow on this, which I used on parts of the tree.

I'll use anything I can lay my hands on for sketching and using old diaries and planners is a great, inexpensive way of building up a collection.


Agenda Planner filled with watercolour paper - I used a 6-hole punch to do the holes for the paper.

It seems that sketch-books and Journals are very much in demand at the moment! If you would like to make your own sketch-book in an easy, quick and fun way, go to 'An Artist's Sketchbook to Make'.

Post Oak Lake, Wichita Mountains, Oklahoma

It's been a while but I am back. There has been so much going on and so much stress in my life lately that I just had to get out and away for a bit and commune with nature. So, Sunday morning I skipped church and went for a real hike in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, Oklahoma. I had a wonderful hike even though the temperature was 102° and still climbing when I got off the trail and back to the car. (It was 108° when I got back home to Texas!) 

This sketch was done at Post Oak Lake. While I was there I heard several large splashes in the lake below my rock perch but I couldn't see what it was -- I finally saw it was a Kingfisher fishing for lunch. Pretty cool. Other than the Kingfisher, I saw lots of bison, longhorn, some lizards and prairie dogs. Not much other wildlife though - they all had the good sense to be resting in the shade.

Water soluble ink & watercolor in the Moleskine sketchbook.

Stroncone - Overlook to Church

Stroncone - Overlook to Church
Originally uploaded by linfrye

Travel Sketchbook
Stroncone Italy
Overlook to Church
Sketched Plein Air
Painted in Studio

I really loved painting in Stroncone - doorways, arches, gardens, but this time I thought I'd try a bit more architecture and so painted this church as I saw it from an overlook in the town.

We were sitting just outside the city walls waiting for our van to pick us up for lunch, and either we were either or the van late. As we sat outside, I sketched this church
-- surrounded by foliage and a backdrop of magnificent mountains. The van arrived before I could paint it, and so it was finished back at La Romita.

Back in North Carolina, the rain is refreshening our dry soils and parched flowers. Although still June, the high heat has really come on strong. At the Arboretum, we've already harvested a ton of lettuce, our first zucchini and patty pan squash. Tomatoes are turning red and we should be able to harvest those in a week or so.

Summer is upon us!

Lin Frye
North Carolina