I have had an everlasting interest in fine arts, in particular in paintings of impressionists, post impressionists and related trends like fauvism, pointillism and surrealism. In the late eighties I also developed a great interest in jigsaw puzzles. Not only an interest but when the puzzle was in the process of being assembled, I felt addicted to the colourful little pieces. At a certain stage, I found that it is more interesting to make a puzzle without the original picture. The addiction to jigsaw puzzles lasted until 1994 when I found in the Mineral World shop in Simonstown (Cape Town) patterns for designing pictures from miniature gemstones. I purchased such a pattern together with pre-selected gemstones and brought my little treasure back home to Bloemfontein.

This was the beginning of my gemstone adventure.

Most of the ideas for my gemstone mosaics/pictures/paintings are based on paintings, photographs (mainly my own photographs), pictures that I find in books, museums, magazines, calendars and first of all on nature. Most of the originals may hardly be recognised since they mainly serve as an idea. Whenever I look at something, I try to imagine how it would look when reflected in a gemstone painting.

My Gemstone Paintings are not the only form of art that carries this name. Gemstone paintings are also a traditional art form in Rajasthan, India. However, the two art forms differ to a great extent. The Indian paintings are made of ground gemstone powder that is pasted on the back of glass sheet (see Nafees Elements, unique gifts and décor), whereas  I choose each tiny gemstone from a collection of thousands of polished gemstones. At present I have about 70 different gemstone species at home. Each kind has hundreds of stones and you cannot find 2 identical stones in colour and shape. It is absolutely fascinating! It takes a long time to complete a gemstone painting. The time depends on the composition of the painting as well. The small, intricate details take much longer than building a sky. I estimate that excluding intricate details I can paste 50 to 100 gemstones per hour. The pasting takes less time than finding a suitable stone.