Commissions
I love creating a painting that has a special meaning or holds a special memory for a client. Commissions become a unique partnership between me and you, to capture something that is often deeply personal.
A view that you have in your mind from a time gone by. The location of a wedding, at the moment of the wedding, after the special day, or as a present on the wedding day itself. The view from a favourite home. A vista that you love that brings you peace and calm.
Perhaps it is of a person - yourself or someone else - either posing for me from life, or with me creating a painting from a photograph that holds meaning and love.
Please contact me if you would like a painting created especially for you or someone you love. I would love to partner with you to create a painting that memorialises this special place.
Testimonials
I created this painting for a dear friend who requested a painting of Hout Bay Harbour and its fishing boats. I could not have been happier, as Hout Bay is the village of my birth, and I have been visiting the Harbour since before I can remember, going to Snoekie’s to buy fish fresh from the boats just in from the early morning catch.
I painted this scene over three days, enjoying the evolution of the painting, and capturing different cloud effects depending on the day.
“Hout Bay is one of South Africa’s most scenic bays. I wanted to capture the essence of the bay and what better way than to capture the fishing boats in Hout Bay Harbour. I commissioned Jo to paint the Harbour scene for me because she is passionate about painting and is able to capture the beauty in her paintings. She diligently kept me updated of the commissioned piece. I highly recommend her to anyone looking to commission a painting.”
This painting was for a close family friend who used to travel this railroad outside The Wilderness (near George, in the Western Cape of South Africa) as a child. She wanted to capture this special memory. I travelled to The Wilderness to paint some sketches of the scene before completing the commission on a larger canvas in my studio.
The location for the painting was quite tricky, as the tide is usually very high, and there are only a few months of the year when the tide is low enough to paint from the desired vantage point. In addition, on any given day, the tide had to be out in order for me to stand on sand and not knee-high in water!
I spent a few days creating various painted “sketches” of the scene, for my client to review and confirm which view she enjoyed most. I imagined she wanted a blue-sky day, but the weather was not cooperating. After discussing with my client, it turned out a grey, overcast day was actually just what she wanted, as this is so typical of this part of the world.
With that information, I painted the final sketch, although I had to be quick, as the tide kept encrouching and I just managed to finish before my window to escape the incoming tide closed!
“I commissioned Joanna to paint the Kaaiman’s River old railway bridge, situated in Wilderness, South Africa, as it holds special memories for me: Sixty years ago, as a young child, I went over that bridge as the culmination of a three day train journey through what was then Rhodesia as well as Botswana and South Africa. How exciting that was! Joanna has captured its beauty exactly. I find her colours of the sea amazing and I’m so happy that I can look at this art work and remember that very special time.”
I created a painting of Devil’s Peak mountain in July - the middle of winter - in 2021. A close friend from childhood, now living in London, wanted a view of the Cape Town mountains to remind her of the land she grew up in. The first Devil’s Peak painting, created standing on the side of the Liesbeek River in Observatory , was our inspiration.
Returning to paint this same view at the end of summer resulted in a very different feeling - clear blue skies, and rich yellows and golds on the mountainside, as the grasses had transformed under the strong summer sun. This is one of the things I love most about plein air painting - the landscape is never the same - the time of year, the time of day, the presence of clouds or no clouds… All these elements combine to create a unique painting and a unique experience, every time.
“Joanna’s beautiful paintings bring familiar scenes to life in the most wonderfully evocative way. It is heart-warming to have some of my beloved Cape mountainscapes so vividly depicted on my walls in London.”