Pringle Bay

June 2007

[My appologies for some of the layout of this "Narritive" but I  cant get the editing on this programme right  KJ-D]

This has been such a special phase of my painting for me as firstly, I was never sure I would be able to paint the baboons who are so very special to me.    And secondly, I have never had such a long run on one subject…I have NO idea when it will stop, but until then I am loving it.

 

My first, and still one of my favourites is ‘Tidler’

                                          

 

 

My second one, ‘Wobbly’ is one I painted for Liza Key, a friend of ours, who was the South African part of the French film crew who made a video on the Baboons and their interactions with people in Pringle Bay.   Wobbly has recently died [April 2007] as the result of pellets from a pellet gun.   She had brought us so much joy.

  

                                         

  

After that I wanted to try something different with the paint, so ‘Tweedle Dee’ came next.    

I wanted to work with light; it takes hours & hours to paint in each hair, but I love it.   He and ‘Tweedle Dum’ are just the sweetest.   

            

                                         

                                                  Tweedle Dee 2006

                                                    Oil on board,

Owned by Liza Key and Janice Honeyman

Pringle Bay, RSA

   

 

  

While painting I kept thinking of little ‘Sweet Pea’ the tiny one that died from two sets of bad injuries.   She was such a sweet little baboon and hardly had a chance to live without pain.                                      

                                                                                                            

Sweat Pea, 1, 2006,

Oil on board,

R5,250

 

I wanted to try and paint smaller babies, while they still have pinks on their faces, hands & feet.    However, I really struggled to get into the next 2 paintings ‘Little Liza’ and ‘Little Summer’ [named after one of our American researches] & they got put on the ‘trash pile’. Then Ruth, a friend, walked in and raved over ‘Little Liza’. Her response inspired me and I started working on them both again.         

 

                                         

 Little Liza 2006

Oil on board,

Owned by Ruth Dallas,

Cheshire, UK

 

I gave the first to Ruth and donated the second to the Conservation Committee to auction for fundraising.   As one cant always get close to the baby baboons – their mothers being fiercely protective – one has to use binoculars.

 

                                               

Oil on board,

Owned by Ruth Dallas,

Cheshire, UK

 

After those littlies, I decided I wanted to both go a bit wild on the painting side, and wanted to see if I could capture the older baboons on the subject side. ‘Alfie’, our alpha male has a very injured jaw which I didn’t want to paint in detail, but just suggest it, together with his huge bulk and strength.

                       

                                         

Alfie 2006

650 x 810,

Mike Kokkinn

Adelaide

Australia

 

 Having got excited with the wild painting and the bulk of the adults I wanted to try and capture & pay tribute to ‘Bully’. Bully is the eldest of our juvenile baboons.   In 2004 all the baboons of his age were killed or died of injuries.    So, with his playmates gone, and being stronger than all the rest, he used to play very roughly, and often seemed he was bullying the others & thus his name. But, actually, he is a softy.   So he became ‘Gentle Bully’.   Last year he was badly injured in one eye and it healed so badly that he now has no vision in his left eye.    I wanted to capture the wild wind and his ruffled neck mane.   After this he joined the Hangklip troop.

 

                                                                    

Gentle Bully 2006,

Oil on board

Owned by Don Maclennan,

Grahamstown, RSA

 

At this time I started a painting of ‘Jimmy-John’.   He is the most affectionate of all the baboons in our troop.   He is the one that will climb into my lap and while he’s sitting there nuzzle into my neck or cheek.    He’s not as cute as the littlies but definitely the most trusting as far as humans goes.   I was really happy with this painting and will keep it.

                       

                                             

Jimmy-John 2006

Oil on board

Owned by artist

  

 At the time I was painting the earlier painting of Bully we heard that a middle size male in our troop had been killed by a car.    And because Bully no longer has binocular vision we assumed that it was him.   We spent a lot of time thinking and talking about him; and also we weren’t seeing anything of the troop, so I was really missing them.    It made me want to do more of Bully.

 

In this next painting I wanted to capture Bully before he had lost his eye, slightly more confident, but still large and growing into his maleness with his jaw lengthening and sinuses broadening out and his head and neck hair lengthening.            

 

Just after I finished this painting we discovered Bully was not the one who was killed but rather a new male in the troop who we hardly knew.  

                                            

Bully a Youngster 2006

Oil on board

700 x 810

R5250

At this stage I wanted to see if I could capture the interaction between 2 baboons.     So I started one of Bully and one of the younger ones.

I’m not sure it worked as it seemed that maybe they looked more like they were fighting rather than playing.

                                           

At Play 2006,

650 x 810,

Oil on board,

R5,250

 

After that I wanted to paint one of ‘Grooming’ as they spend so much time doing this, especially in the times at the end of the day when we see them most.                                 

    

                                           

Grooming 2006,

600 x 810

oil on board

R5,250

 The next thing I wanted to try was a baby being carried on its mothers back.

                                       

                                              Taking the Easy Way 2006

650 x 810

oil on board

R5,250

 

 Sometimes between grooming and playing time the baboons just sit up close to each other, sometimes holding each other.    There is such a sweetness to this.

                                                         

                                         

Jimmy-John and Tidler 2006

520 x 810

oil on board

R5,250

  

We have a lovely shot of the ‘terrible twins’ [as we call Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum] lying curled up together, one asleep on the other one’s back. It was an image I wanted to capture.   I’m not absolutely sure that the blues in the background shouldn’t be a lot darker, but I really wanted the focus on the heads.

   

                                       

The Terrible Twins 2006

520 x 810

oil on board

R5,250

  

This is named ‘Curiosity’ or ‘We’re All Ears’ by Bryan who mostly finds names for my paintings when I tell him what I was feeling about the painting as I was doing it.                                                        

                                                 

We’re All Ears 2006,

610 x 700

oil on board

R5,250

 

The memory of Sweat Pea is so strong for us that I was drawn to paint a second painting of her.   Both sets of her injuries were so severe and she suffered so much it was hard to sit on the outside and ‘just watch’ how the troop handled her. It was interesting to watch this: at first her playmates did a lot of the extra grooming which involved cleaning her wounds by licking them.   But her pain made her so distraught that she ‘went home’ to the adult females and stayed with them until her first injuries were almost healed and she got enough of her spirit and energy back to enable her to start tentatively playing with the young ones again.    Sadly, just after gaining the courage to go back to her peer group she again got badly injured – we assumed in a fight – and disappeared for good.    We miss her sorely.

  

 

Sweat Pea 2 2006

610 x 700

oil on board

owned by Av & Ian Bell

New Zealand

  

While I was painting another of ‘our littlies’ a dreadful thing happened to the Cape Peninsula troop: someone tried to poison some of them.  Jenny Trethowen, from “Baboon Matters” was called out to see what had happened and while she nursed the young ones she herself absorbed the poison and had to be hospitalised.   Although she is better [though will always carry the poison] her life was very precarious.   From this side of False Bay one felt very impotent. And I felt instead of sending messages and flowers I would rather send her a baboon painting. So this little painting I called “Hope” and got it delivered to Jenny. [While I don’t know her personally one feels a kindred spirit with those who love and respect baboons.]

 

 

Hope 2006

Oil on board

Owned by Jenny Trethowen,

Western Cape, RSA

 

Jimmy-John is our really affectionate baboon. They will all be playing on our deck and suddenly Jimmy-John will jump on my lap.  He’ll stay there a while while I stroke him and talk ‘small nonsense’s’ to him, he’ll sometimes want to smell my hands or my mouth, or lightly put his muzzle against my cheek [which on camera looks like he’s gently kissing me]. Then just as swiftly jump off to play with the others.    If he’s in a very affectionate mood, he’ll lie down on the deck or table and roll over so one can stroke his tummy.   He does have his moments where he’ll be jealous of our attention with another baboon, but mostly it’s Charlie, a slightly bigger baboon who is jealous of him and will come and smack your hand as you reach out to stroke Jimmy-John.   I can’t part with this painting as it just captures a ‘special look’’.

                                                                                                                    

 

Affectionate Jimmy-John 2006

Oil on board

Owned by the artist

  

Sometimes when the baboons come to our deck it is just too cold to go outside with them but because we have so many windows and glass doors, we can sit inside and just watch them. One of the times I love is to watch them in the wind, the way it blows their fur. The look wild…and wind swept!

 

 

Wild Wind 2006

520 x 600

Oil on board

R4,200.

 

At times in this wild weather the little ones look so forlorn.    One minute they will be chasing each other around like ‘mad hatters’, and suddenly the moment of play is over, the wild weather  takes it toll and you catch a glimpse of that very lonely look you sometimes get in the young ones.    One sees this look particularly if two or three young ones have been separated from the troop and they come up to us [we are quite high] and ‘look out’ and wait for the rest of the troop, all the while calling a very mournful cry [which Bryan mimics well, but I can’t].   Only once have two been ‘lost’ here until way after dusk – they eventually went off on their own to their sleeping site.

  

 

Forlorn 2006

520 x 815

Oil on board

R4,200.

 

This is just another one of those spit second looks.  The dishevelled windy look of stillness as they are about to leap into action once again

 

 

Stillness 2006

520 x 610

Oil on board

R4,200.

 

Mandy had been one of the youngsters – the rowdy group that come onto our deck and play. And although she had been in oestrous a number of times over a twelve month period, we never expected her to be ready to fall pregnant.   She had always kept us amused as she was a totally different personality when she was in and out of oestrous.   When she was in oestrous and being mounted almost every 10 minutes she was highly strung and very edgy.   She was much calmer, though still a little shy when not in oestrous.   We would never have guessed that she would fall pregnant, but she did, and the week her baby was born she was sitting in the sun on our garage roof holding this tiny pink and black ‘scrap’. Bryan and I were sitting 3 meters away at our outside table when suddenly, and with no fuss she, jumped onto the table and sat with her baby just at arm’s length to us. We didn’t move, nor talk, as she sat for a few moments with her baby exposed to us.   And then just as quickly she moved off, never to repeat the scenario.   We felt so blessed and touched that she should trust us so much.

 

Mandy and her New Born 2006

610 x 700

Oil on board

R4,200.

Sometimes Jimmy-John just comes and sits close to us. He may not even want to be stroked or interact physically. But will just sit close by and watch.   Its as if sometimes he just communicates with his eyes and his presence.   This is one of those times.

 

 

Jimmy John Who Talks to Me 2006

610 x 700

Oil on board

R5,250.

 

There are times where the smaller baboons are so loving towards each other.   They will sit up close, especially when on a handrail like here, and will put their arms around the one in front of them. You’ll catch them in their embrace seconds before they are haring around the garden and roof once more.

 

Jimmy-John, Tidler & Liza 2006

Oil on board

Owned by Martha B Hopkins

Tucson, Arizona,

USA

  

I just love the wild robustness about Alfie.    His size is huge, bulky and intimidating; but except when he is defending any of his troop, he is generally quiet and mostly keeps to himself.   He often has one mature Mama with her child with him, playing so gently with the baby.    But, if Alfie or any other of ‘his’ baboons are under the slightest threat, he can move his bulk at the speed of light.   He has a power which is almost unimaginable.   And it would be foolish for any human, small or big get in his path.   Even with his damaged jaw [from a fight with a Beta male] Alfie demands respect.

 

 

Alfie 2 2006

700 x 810

Oil on board