Safari Murals

Silver Willow Painting in Pretoria, South Africa
(12 inches by 18 inches)

Having now been to South Africa, I can paint just about anything you would come up with as far as a safari mural is concerned.  To be able to see many of the magnificent animals up close and in their own habitat, makes it easier to get the right feel for this type of artwork.  I was on my South African trip in April of 2008, for 18 days.  From the moment I arrived, it was love at first sight.  We stayed with friends who own and run the Team Building Institute in Pretoria, South Africa, at the beginning of the trip and I did some painting of the local trees and flowers.  I had packed a small water color kit and paper for the trip and was glad I did.  This is the first piece I painted, sitting on a balcony in Pretoria, at an outdoor center we stayed at for the first couple of nights.  I painted silver willow branches that were just outside our door and were just starting to turn different colors of gold and rust. 

Yes, Elephants were this close to our vehicles.  On safari, you get to drive around the countryside and find whatever you can.  Sometimes you are pleasantly surprised when coming upon something so large and other times it might seem scary.

This is our friend Andre.  He has lived in Baltimore, MD for a few years now, but is originally from South Africa.  He was a joy to have along this trip for he was so knowledgeable of things such as tracking animal footprints and types of birds that were all over.  This is the scene we had each night as we took a break to watch the sun go down.  Our driver, Heinz, from Tau Game Lodge would set up a table with different types of local jerky, crackers, dried fruit, etc.  They would be in small re useable tins and he would ask us what we wanted to drink before we left and he would provide it.  Beer, wine, soda, whatever you liked.  What a treat to have this in the middle of the open range where anything could come out!  It was one of the few times we were allowed to get out of the vehicle.  But, Heinz would always have a shotgun ready for emergencies.  On this night in particular, we saw a brown hyena walking down the road by himself just before we stopped.  Heinz said not to worry for they never attack when alone.  Soon after, I was off by myself standing just outside of the vehicle as the others were by Heinz and the table of goodies.  I happened to just turn around and saw that same hyena running straight for me as fast as it could.  I yelled that it was coming after me and jumped onto the range rover.  Heinz was a little surprised to say the least for he did not expect this to happen.  As soon as the others came running, the hyena stopped dead in his tracks, raised up on his two hind legs and ran into the bushes across the street.  The hyena thought I was by myself for he could not see the others just past the large vehicle.  I feel very lucky indeed that I was not hurt.  Hyenas can kill a human in a second with their fast approach and large mouths.  Whew!  I’m still here and ready for my 8 other lives!

This is a rare site indeed.  Not everyone who goes to Africa gets to see these beautiful creatures.  As you can tell by the close up of the one dog, he actually has purple spots of hair!  How unexpected.  I was totally surprised to see this.  The one thing in particular that I will always remember about these creatures is the smell of them.  The odor of a mixture of musk and urine was almost overpowering as they trotted by our vehicle on the dirt road.  Our first safari lodge we stayed at was called appropriately Makanyane Lodge.  Very, very beautiful with having our own private lodgings, hippos in the river behind us, grunting and playing in the water in the middle of the night, shaking the bed and reverberating so loud it sounded like they were in the room with us, monkeys running around our patio, crickets the size of little mice and lions resting in the grass at night, just outside our front door, roaring from time to time just to let us know they were there.  We had a bushman that came to escort us to the main building each morning at 5:00 am for we were not allowed to walk down the paths by ourselves in the dark.  This lodge was the only one we stayed at that had no barbed wire or electric fences to keep us away from the wildlife.  It was so exciting.

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Please contact San at 239-269-5733 or her contact form