Ken jy die Land?

The inspiration for this painting is the Afrikaans song “Ken jy die land”. The song highlights all the things in our South Africa that brings us joy, what we love and what we find beautiful:

•        The sea and the sky

•        the people and the animals

•        the birds and the flowers

 This is a mixed media painting:

Acrylic paint; paper collage; velum collage; a bit of modelling paste and fabric collage was used. The painting started of with an abstract under painting in acrylics and then the drawings on top of that.  Collages were alternated with painting.  A number of washes were used to get more depth, and some of the collages were painted over for texture some texture also in the blue crane’s feathers. 

To explain “Local is lekker” in the painting, I chose to paint the “lekker” things I like to do: bird watching; game drives, nature and to appreciate the wide diversity and variety of species in our country. To be able to do just that, God has appointed man as the guardian of all this beauty – the male image represents divinity and guardianship.

 Lastly I used warm earthy colours so typical of our country, to bring it to life.