From the West Coast of South Africa: Happy Thanksgiving!

Y'all are busy with cooking preparations and being sociable and thankful, so from the West Coast of South Africa to my dear children and all my friends in the States: HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving

A year has passed and again I break away from the West Coast theme to wish my American children and friends Happy Thanksgiving. My daughter Helen in Texas is cooking up a storm for her family and friends. I enjoyed Thanksgiving so much when I was there in November 2000. Ah, the yams, oven-baked with layers of apples in between, really complemented the turkey which my sun-in-law baked in an outside oven! Spending very little on "props and flowers", she always creates a most beautiful table setting. Yesterday she told me: " Mom, we embrace this holiday, because there are always so much to be thankful for!"

The friends I want to send these wishes to are the few I know in person and the many kind people I have met and chatted with in the blogging world and the social media. I include the over 1600 secret and very silent US people who have visited my blog the last eighteen months. Enjoy, everyone!

This painting of a very South African-looking pumpkin farm is part of about 10 paintings I made when I was still planning my blog, then of course I decided on another formula of smaller and historically correct works. So these paintings have not been framed or exhibited. They fit nowhere in my oevre, but Mitzy the Maltese thinks that they do give some colour to her corner!

And now for South African Pumpkins

For all my friends in the States who are painting and displaying and eating pumpkin at this time of the year, I show a still life with everyday South African pumpkins.

You do not want to know what Spring has turned into as the rain pours down and the wind whips up the ocean outside my studio window!

While I am waiting to continue travelling the West Coast and paint a waving wheatfield, I refer back to my previous blog. I have used my own window and my own doll in the picture, and added a bowl of miniature American pumpkins which I photographed on my daughter's Thanksgiving table in 2000 in Texas. When I was there, I truly admired the lovely pumpkins displayed on lawns and window-sills all over American towns, some of them enormous, very orange, very round orbs!

Our pumpkins are very rough-looking, I hope you like them too!

A waving wheatfield coming up soon! (thinking positively about the weather!)