You never know another animal may suddenly appear and you could miss some exciting action if you moved off too quickly!

Knowing this, 

We slow down the car, and were more careful in our endeavour to search for animals between the trees and bush.  

You can so easily miss something because wild animals are so well camouflaged against the colours and patterns of the bush. 

With careful scrutiny:

When all of a sudden, we spotted a huge black lump far back in the bush to our left! So we stopped the car quickly to check it out.  

Could it have been a massive rounded black rock… or was it something lying down? Our daughter stopped the car so we could have a better look.  

We peered out our car windows at the thing. My daughter and my husband focused on it with their binoculars and I zoomed in with my camera. 

What was it?

It looked like a hippo lying on its side with its back towards us. And I took a photo of it. 

Gosh! You don’t normally see a hippo out of the water during the middle of the day. They generally keep cool in a river, during the heat of the day.  

They usually only leave the water to graze at night, and this one was very far from a river!  So what was it doing there? 

We hoped it was just sleeping, and not sick or something!? Then another thought came into our minds. What if a lion discovered it?! It really wasn’t safe lying there! 

Oh well, there wasn’t anything we could do about it, I’m sure. And nothing was happening. It stayed very still. No lion came or anything to check it out. So we eventually moved off, hoping it was going to be alright!? 

And it wasn’t long before we saw… 

More Nyala buck:

 

If you look carefully you will see two buck standing in the background. One is standing behind the other. 

Okay, for those who want to know how I painted this buck oil painting: 

1. The canvas I buy is already primed with white paint. I always prepare a lot of canvases at one time, by giving them an overall wash of raw sienna and turpentine. And leave them to dry, and then store them away for later use. 
2. When starting to paint a scene, I lightly draw in the scene with a small brush. The colour I use at this stage depends on the basic colours of the scene. And I don’t draw in every detail. Just a line or two here and there to position the objects in the composition, to know where the horizon outline is and basic outline of objects in the scene. Nothing tidy and do fine detail. 
3. This makes it easy in the next stage, to know where to block-in the basic colours of those areas. Example: working from the top of the canvas, the sky area first, then the back hill, then the foreground. The tone level of the colours at this block-in stage is fairly dark, because in oils you work from dark to light. 
4. As I add lighter colours, it helps to leave the colours of the subtle atmospheric conditions in and immediate surroundings of the trees against the sky and in the pinholes in the foliage. And also close to the foreground bushy weeds. 
5. You see, as you work you add details you think will give you the right effect. Remember you can’t paint perfectly as God created. So you have to leave out the fine tidily bits (like every tiny twig) and suggest the rest, to create lovely atmospheric conditions instead. 
6. To get the moody atmospheric effect of the scene, I interplay the different shades and tints of the colours until I’m happy with the result. This includes adding the highlights.

PS: You can go to my personal website: www.adafagan.co.za, to see more of my paintings if you like. And there are also free art book downloads if you are interested.

You see how the buck nibble at the tiniest little spring leaves off the bushes. They were so intent on eating the leaves, they weren’t concerned about us at all. I think they are such regal animals. 

Next week’s travel blog:

You will find another oil painting to check out.