Celebrating Heritage Day

Today, 24 September 2017 we are celebrating Heritage day in South Africa. Also well know as "Braai Dag" (Barbeque Day). South Africans celebrate their culture and diversity of their traditions and believe.  We are truly the rainbow nation. It was first time celebrated on 24 September 1995 and is a public holiday. Now, this year it is on a Sunday, that means tomorrow is a public holiday. Yippy! For a long weekend!

Celebrating Heritage Day

 We celebrate the day at school and the learners had the opportunity to dress in their traditional clothes. They all looked so colourful and beautiful. 

Learners in their traditional clothes

Maybe you don't know it, but South Africa have 11 official languages. And most people here are fluent in two languages. For example I'm Afrikaans but can also speak English as my second language. I'm teaching Afrikaans as First Additional Language at a Primary School. But for most of my students it is their third language. Most schools in South Africa are English or Afrikaans and not the learner’s home language.

Today I’m sharing words that some learners told me in their mother tongue.

	ENGLISH	LANGUAGE
yiyakubonga	Thank you	isiZulu
Goeie nag	Good night	Afrikaans
izala	Come here	isiZulu
isitunsi	shadow	isiZulu
dumelang	hello	Spedi
unjane	How are you?	isiZulu
umuhle	You are beautiful	isiZulu
hatic	I know	Swathi
Mobimo	God	isiZulu
Modimo	God	seSotho
gogo	Granny	isiZulu
margo	but	isiZulu
umama	mother	isiZulu
isea	come	Xhosa
Inkosa zana	princess	isiZulu
molwene	hello	Xhosa

Look at the beautiful beads!

 It is really wonderful it is to live in a country so diverse and beautiful. 

How to clean an oil painting

Have you ever thought of how to clean an oil painting without damaging it?

How to clean an oil painting

I just moved to a new house and we are busy decorating the wall with some paintings. One of the oil paintings was covered in dirt and full of dust. First I thing I tried was to dust it with a cloth. With no luck, it didn't made a difference.  Have a look at the photo below and you will see just how dirty it was.

Dirty oil painting

Then I remembered what a art collector told me many moons ago.

And I thought let me give it a try!

First you cut a potato...no, we aren't going to cook, but clean a painting!
Using a potato from mother nature - with no damaging chemicals. 

Take the sliced potato and gently rub the oil painting with the flesh side of the potato in circular movements.

Step 1: Rub with potato

The sliced potato will pick up all the dirt and dust.  I was surprised on how dirty the potato is. 

Step 2: Wipe with baby wipes

I then used baby wipes to wipe the part that I just rubbed with the potato. I will suggest baby wipes without alcohol or  fragrance.

Start in a corner and work on just a small part, repeating the process until you cleaned the whole painting.

Difference between the clean and dirty parts of the painting

Yeah! It worked for me. Hope you can see the difference of the before and after pictures.

Cleaned painting

If you want to go ahead give it a try, but if it is a very valuable and expensive  painting I would first ask a art collector for advice.

If you have any other awesome ideas for how to clean a painting, I would love to hear from you. 

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Trying again

Now, how did it get to a point that it is  four years ago that I did my last post. Well, maybe it is time to pick up where I left and try again. So many reasons why I let it go. I'm not gonna go into it now, but I had my struggles.
I'm slowly feeling that my creative juices starts to flow again. For some or other reason I'm starting to create again. Taking baby steps by doing more crafts than painting. But I can feel how  paintings are screaming inside my head to come out. Hopefully very soon I will pickup the paint brushes and a white canvas won't just be staring back at me.  So, people here I'm again, sharing my new journey with you. Must this one be a good on full of hope and inspiration.
May my hope be stronger than my fear.

"Hope is the only thing stronger than fear"

I'M WATCHING YOU

Busy working on my Visual Dairy while Katya is watching me

If you can hear me

Sometimes you find words that describe exactly how you feel...and this is for me...

Im old enough to feel the pain
Of living where no love can grow with no hope for change
My world is an angry place but I do make sure that scars don’t show
And with every hurt my tender heart is growing old

Who’s gonna love me
Who’s gonna touch me with the tenderness I long for
Like a desert longs for rain
I got a hunger deep inside and with every tear I cry
I wonder if there’s someone out there somewhere
Who’s gonna love me

I look in the mirror now an the little girl is gone
But still the search for someone’s love goes on an on
But does anybody care or even notice me at all
Is anyone listening close enough to hear me call