Back to Lima

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Cathedral Plaza at Night

Watercolour and crayon

©2013 Charlene Brown

Earlier in October, I painted a picture for the Virtual Paintout, where pictures must be of Google Streetviews of the designated location.  I had planned on painting the Lima Cathedral, but found that the Google car hadn’t actually made it into the plaza, or anywhere near it for that matter.  I eventually found a perfectly acceptable street, Eléspuru, in the Rimac area, but recently decided to give Lima another try, and paint the elusive cathedral from photographs.

No longer limited by Google Streetview’s understandable lack of night scenes, I painted it at its spectacular best, the way it looks just after dinner – at about 11 pm!

The treasure of Siwidi

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Undersea and regular grizzlies

Watercolour and crayon

©2013 Charlene Brown

The Museum at Campbell River, one of the highlights of our recent trip up-Island, offers a fine venue for experiencing the rich heritage of the people of the coast. Vibrant and contemporary exhibits reflect First Nations cultures and lifestyles, dating back 8000 years, including the Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth and Coast Salish culture groups.

A not-to-be missed feature is ‘The Treasures of Siwidi,’ in which the powerful voice of a local Chief narrates the adventures of the ancestor Siwidi. Journeying to the Undersea World, Siwidi encounters a host of supernatural creatures, dramatically illustrated as a series of spectacular masks are revealed one by one, including many sea creatures such as octopus, whale, and my personal favourite, undersea grizzly. The 24 masks are the work of contemporary First Nations artists. 
It wasn’t possible to obtain a replica or even a picture of the mythical undersea grizzly with his striking sea urchin helmet, so I decided to paint a couple of them, fishing for salmon along with some regular grizzlies. 

Visualizing the passage of time with layers

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Ptolemais, Libya

Watercolour and Photoshop™

Originally one of the five cities of the 7^th Century BCE Libyan Pentapolis, Ptolemais was conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4^th Century BCE (and passed to his General, Ptolemy - hence the name), and conquered by Rome in the 1^st Century CE. Ptolemais was the site, in 301 CE, of an early attempt at wage and price controls – Diocletian’s Edictum De Pretiis – overlaid, in this computer painting, on the background of a watercolour of the present day ruins of the site. 

The best up-island trip yet!

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Hanging Gardens of Quadra

Watercolour and Photoshop™

©2013 Charlene Brown

Vancouver Island was first explored by British and Spanish expeditions in the late 18th century, and was originally called Quadra’s and Vancouver’s Island after Spanish navigator Juan de la Bodega y Quadra and British navy officer George Vancouver. The Spanish must have lost interest in land so far north because in the 19^th century when Quadra was dropped from the name they settled for it being given to a tiny island between Vancouver Island and the mainland. Vancouver Island covers 12,407 sq mi and Quadra Island is less than 1% of that at 120 sq mi!

I’ve just returned from another Gallery Associates trip to visit artists in the northern part of Vancouver Island, and on Quadra Island, which we reached by ferry from Campbell River. This picture is the view from one artist’s garden back towards Campbell River. As always, we found people’s gardens to be as splendidly inspiring as their studios and galleries, with driftwood, ceramics, and metal sculpture combined with flowers and arrayed around rock pools or hanging from trees.

Virtual Paintout in Lima, Peru

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Eléspuru, Rimac

Watercolour, crayon and marker

©2013 Charlene Brown

The Virtual Paintout is in Lima, Peru this month, and my first thought was to have a look at the Lima Cathedral and the townhouses of the original Conquistadors in the vicinity of the cathedral. I suspected the Baroque ornamentation of the Spanish colonial architecture would prove rather difficult to draw so I wasn't sure that was what I wanted to do, and when I got to that part of town on the map, I discovered the Google car hadn't got anywhere near the Plaza Mayor, so there were no Google Streetviews of any of the area I had in mind anyway… and no big decisions about whether or not to try the cathedral!

I just wandered around town and picked a Streetview with mountains in the background.  Here is a link to it  

Visualizing the passage of time with faded image of the past

Ziggurat at Ur

Watercolour and Photoshop™

The Sumerian ziggurat at Ur, built about four thousand years ago, originally had three levels.  

 The first level, most of which is still standing, has three huge stairways leading to a magnificent gate more than twelve metres above the ground.   In the illustration, the surviving part of this ziggurat is coloured. 

 The upper levels, which were later destroyed, are ghosted in white.