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African bee hives surrounded in lavender

I came across an old photograph from my time living at the Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club, and it immediately transported me back to Kenya.

The photograph shows something that might seem quite ordinary – African beehives sitting amongst the rough on the hotel golf course, surrounded by lavender. But somehow, put them against that enormous African sky and the whole scene becomes rather magical.

It also made me think of Joan Eardley’s paintings of beehives. There is something about the simplicity of those shapes that I really love, although this Kenyan version would have to be much more colourful. Eardley’s muted, earthy landscapes are beautiful, but the colours I remember from Kenya were anything but muted!

And then I started wondering about the golfers...

Imagine playing a round of golf on this beautiful course at the foothills of Mount Kenya, happily making your way around the fairways, when your golf ball disappears into the rough.

You know exactly where it has gone.

Into the grass, somewhere amongst the lavender and, rather inconveniently, the beehives.

Do you simply accept that you've lost the ball and carry on with your round?

Or do you bravely venture into the rough to retrieve it and risk disturbing the bees?

Personally, I think I'd be taking the lost-ball penalty!

The huge African azure-blue sky, vibrant green grass and flashes of lavender are exactly my favourite kind of palette to work with. There is something about putting intense blues and greens together with those softer purple tones that just works.

One of the things I found so inspiring about living in Kenya was the light. It seemed to intensify everything it touched. Colours were brighter, shadows were stronger and even the simplest landscape could suddenly become incredibly vibrant.

The African sun seemed to bring out colours that I didn't know existed.

I remember constantly looking at the landscape around Mount Kenya and thinking about how I could translate those colours into a painting. The blue of the sky, the brilliant greens of the grass, the warm earth and the flashes of colour from flowers and plants all became part of the visual language of the place for me.

And now, years later, I find this old photograph and I'm looking at those beehives in a completely different way.

Perhaps that is what happens with photographs – you don't just remember the place, you start noticing things you might have overlooked at the time.

African beehives, lavender, a golf course and that enormous Kenyan sky.

Suddenly I'm back there again.

And, naturally, I'm thinking that would make a rather lovely painting.