The Road to Creation

Original acrylic painting with oil pastel detail on canvas

Available for purchase

There are certain days that feel quietly significant while they are happening — days that ask to be noticed rather than rushed.

The Road to Creation was painted from a moment like that. A crisp June morning in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley, light just beginning to lift, the day still full of promise. The winding dirt road leads towards Creation Wines, but it also holds something more familiar: the sense of anticipation that comes with being fully present, knowing time together is limited and therefore precious.

I took the reference photograph while driving with my friend Julie, who visits from Scotland whenever she can. We met years ago through a mutual friend, but over time our connection deepened into its own friendship — the kind that quietly outgrows its origin. When Julie is here, life expands. We see more theatre, eat in better restaurants, wander through galleries, talk longer, drive further.

Creation has become one of our places. We’ve celebrated a special birthday, lingered over long lunches, and returned again and again simply because it feels right. Even the chickens feel perfectly placed — completely at home on the track, casually slowing everything down.

Painted in acrylic with oil pastel detail, the palette leans gently towards pinks and softened greens — perhaps influenced, just a little, by Creation’s gorgeous Reserve Pinot Noir. The light moves softly across the scene, patient rather than dramatic, suggesting possibility without urgency.

The Road to Creation is about choosing presence — about recognising how friendship, landscape, and time intersect when you allow yourself to notice them. A reminder that some of the most meaningful journeys are not about arrival, but about who you are beside as the day begins.