Mokopane artist finds inspiration through God’s creatures
Living and breathing pencil: Bess Pieterse has been creating pencil and colour-pencil drawings for the past 32 years
MOKOPANE – One of her most valued paintings, a portrait of Thabo Mbeki, is displayed on the former president’s wall in his house.
This amazingly talented artist is Bess Pieterse, and she calls Mokopane home. Bess has been creating pencil and colour-pencil drawings for the past 32 years and to this day her artwork is well-known, even in the USA. “I have been facinated by drawing since I was a little girl, my mother used to draw and that is where I developed my love for this art.”
Bess is also a proud mother of two children, Bradley and Ashley and a loving wife to her husband Frank.
She tells Bosveld that she gets her inspiration mostly from animals and that drawing humans is not as inspiring as drawing animals.
“I have a very big love for animals. They are phenomenal. When I draw them, I can understand why God created these creatures. They are perfect in every way. There are so many little details.”
To her, the most difficult part of drawing is to be disciplined enough to know that you need to finish a drawing no matter how long it takes. “One of my drawings took me 60 hours to finish. By that time I was living and breathing pencil. It is very difficult,” she laughingly tells Bosveld.
She proudly talks about one of her greatest achievements thus far, which is drawing pictures of frogs for the Atlas and Red Data Book of the Frogs of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland along with one other artist.
This book took 15 years to finish of which she drew 22 pictures of frogs who are in the red zone of extinction. This book was published through Smithsonian Institution in Washigton D.C., USA. She says: “It was such a privilege to be able to be part of such a big project.”
She explains that she used to sell her artwork, but is trying to stock up for her big move to Sedgefield in five years, where she hopes to sell all her art.
