What wildlife you will see next around the corner, in the Kruger National Park. It was still our second day in the park.

We stopped to look around;

To see what we may spot. I thought why not take some photos while we were sitting idle in the car. Perhaps the road ahead would make a good composition and took a couple photos of it. I always take photos, in the hope I can use and paint them later sometime. 

I know you like seeing painting added to my blogs, so here is… 

An oil painting:

So I recently painted this oil painting of the road in the Kruger National park, from the photos I just talked about above: 

And for those who want to know more about how I paint my paintings, here is how I did this one. 

1. The painting was first started with a thin overall wash of raw sienna (turpentine to thin paint down). Tip: This gives the painting a uniform sunny aspect effect, especially if little spots are missed and the undercoat radiates through the finished painting. 
2. When the raw sienna undercoat is completely dry, you draw in basic outlines of the scene. Nothing detailed. Don’t fuss. Just a few scribbled lines here and there, using a small thin brush with a thin wash of the scenes basic colour. In this case I used raw umber. This is to get the basic position of the main elements. 

Note: When painting with oil paints, you work from `lean to fat’. That is: Working layer by layer. Starting without oil in your medium; just using turpentine to thin the paint. Then add a little more oil with each sequent layer. This helps the paint dry easier from the bottom up. So the next layer, the blocking in layer stage, you add a little oil to the paint.  

1. First I filled in the sky colour. Used Ultramarine blue for the top part of the sky and manganese blue for the lower part of the sky. Of cause added white oil paint to get the right hue level.  Tip: If you interact warm and cool blues it give the sky atmospheric depth! 
2. Then I blocked in the landscape, nothing detailed, just basic shapes of colour. (Lighter colours are added later). This is done to get the basic positions of things in your composition. 
3. When that is dry, fill in the details, with each subsequent layer, until you get the right effects. You see with each subsequent layer you can adjust and refine things. 
4. Out of interest, the road was done with about three layers. I inter-mingled the colours to get the right dusty road effect. I left out most of the little stones, thinking it would make the painting look spotty and distract the eye from looking further into the scene. The width of the road also pulls you in perspectively. I wanted people to feel they too were traveling along the road, into the painting! 

Anyway, back to our Kruger trip: Further on we came across this single… 

Scratching francolin:

The Natal Francolin is supposed to be a shy bird. They’re inclined to scuttle into the bush when `spooked’ (frightened). But this little guy was so concerned with his foraging in the dried leaves and sticks, that I had a chance to take a photo of it. 

These francolins are only 35 cm high. And I think they behave just like little bantam hens scratching in the dirt looking for seeds, insects, spiders, etc. and when startled they give out an alarm call that sounds like a repeated `chek-chek-chek’ 

Normally there is a flock of 6-10 Natal francolins. They like to hangout in rocky outcrops and thorn bush terrain.  

They specially choose to make their nests in dense vegetation, so they can be privately concealed. Then they lay 2-8 eggs in hollows in the ground, between stones and whatever will camouflage it. 

After seeing the francolin, we turned the corner in the road a little further on, and came across a whole herd of… 

Beautiful Zebra:

I think zebra have a grace similar to horses, with their clean-looking black and white striped `rugby jersey’ coats! 

 

Here the zebra were standing around a cemented waterhole, on the right side of the road. These zebra seemed so calm and happy with themselves. Nothing seemed to be worrying them. 

In some small nature reserves in South Africa, Zebra are rather tame and you can walk right up to them and pat them.  

But here, I don’t think these would be tame zebra in the wildness of Kruger Park, with lions, hyena, cheetah and leopards forever stalking them! 

But as we looked at them the scene was so peaceful. We stayed there for quite a while, just watching the zebra mingled around, what seemed so aimlessly. 

In next week travel blog: 

We started to play the game, of spotting new game in the park… Want to see what we saw next?