The original artwork to illustrate an article for a magazine in Cape Town, South Africa. The original on the left, is painted with a blue tint on what would have originally been a white board. The blue tint would have been an aid to the orthochromatic printing process at the time. For the image on the right, I have manipulated the conversion to black and white so that we can get an idea of how it would have appeared in it’s final printed reproduction, but without the normal screening process.

This was painted while my mother was being courted or engaged to be married and I’m sure represents her romanticized view of her future married life. It’s cleverly signed by including the initials of the young lovers prominently carved into the tree in the foreground, C J for Christine Jukes and M B for Melvin Benson, her future husband. She must have had some feelings about the work, as unlike any of the other prepress illustrations she saved, this one was put in a matted cardboard frame. See how life turned out in her biography.