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Spring is here.

It is spring in Cape Town. The sky is blue, the sea smooth, and outside our window, the whales are back.

Like a turning wheel, the seasons revolve, but with each revolution we are further down the road. So with our art. We go through the same cycle of inspiration, conception, building and resolution, and each painting becomes the foundation for the next. Not only our own, but those of all the ages. It was Degas who said, 'We are giants, because we stand on the shoulders of giants.'

Spring is the time for new shoots, new inspirations, new understanding. Indulge, delight in every breath of perfumed breeze. This is our mission on earth, to experience joy.

Butterfly vision.

Some years ago, during a watercolour demonstration, I was explaining the concept of butterfly vision.

'Look!'

I turned my head. On my right shoulder, motionless, perfect, was a white butterfly.

Did one of my students place it on my shoulder? They would have laughed, surely - and their reaction was, wonderment.

It felt like a sign, or rather, a lesson, from nature. The butterfly was dead, but to me this was something positive. Its last act, its final movement, brought it to settle on my shoulder...

As a species, we humans are blessed. Not only do we have magnificent binocular vision, but, unique in nature, we have a second, parallel system of vision, colour. I think of the two systems as eagle vision and as butterfly vision.

Imagine being a butterfly. Your eyes are composite, made up of various lenses, with no particular focus, each one a receptor for pure colour. By human standards, butterflies are legally blind. They would not qualify to drive, much less to fly. They see the world like a computer screen, or like a painting, in terms of patches of colour. Imagine that butterfly moving. Each facet of its eye receiving new and ever-changing colour, combining into a whirling kaleidoscope, a dance of colour, the dance of the universe itself. Is it any wonder that the butterfly chooses a flight path of swirl and twist? It lives, I believe, an experience of pure joy.

And we, those of us who have been blessed with butterfly vision, we can share in that joy, stroke by stroke as we build our painting.

Saturday outings.

Next week, Saturday, 12th September, looks like a good time for painting at Kalk Bay Harbour. The suns rises around 6h30 so if you would like to join us, about 6h15 would be a good time. Bring all you need, including something to eat.

I am doing this on Saturdays in order to make up sessions lost to my Monday class, but anybody is welcome, particularly all us old hands at outdoor work.

Website

http://artistvision.org/

Workshops

For details on workshops and classes in Cape Town and Europe, click here

A note to butterflies.

In your visual delight, don't forget, also to smell the jasmin, and to sip the nectar.

The art of Ryno Swart