"Major Mitchell's Cockatoo" Drawing

I was born in the diamond city of South Africa, Kimberley. I spent most of my time on the farm where I enjoyed the outdoors, animals, and freedom of the openness.

After school I joined the South African Police service, during this time I married my lovely wife, Rene.
I resigned after seven years to start a new career in banking.

From the Police to banking was extreme to say the least, but I soon got the hang of it, I excelled, in a short space of time I became a bank manager of a finance institution in Welkom.

We stayed in the Welkom for three years then our big event came to Pretoria.

It was our introduction to corporate life in Gauteng where we lived and worked for the last twenty plus years of our lives.

Our time in Pretoria was great but the corporate life creeps up on you and soon I became a hamster on a wheel. With time, my responsibilities grew, and my office hours soon became twelve hours a day.

The daily commute from Pretoria to Sandton eventually gets to you, that and long working hours was a recipe that something had to give in at some point.

And so it happened that I just couldn't anymore, my body was done, and my strength was gone.

After numerous tests, the shock, I was diagnosed with cancer.
This is all because of stress related issues from the corporate life with little or no time to look after yourself from a health perspective.
Rene and I decided enough is enough, we decided that I will resign, and we will sell all we had up in Gauteng and move to George in Western Cape.
In the short period we have been here I had ample time at hand. One day I just started drawing and it was fulfilling and relaxing.
I played around with some different mediums and eventually decided on Charcoal and Pencils.

Everything to date is self-taught with a lot of assistance from online videos and an eye for detail from Rene.