Another of the parts less painted...

Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed

Watercolour and oil pastel

©2019 Charlene Brown

Unlike many of the spectacular locations in British Columbia, this is a ‘part less painted,’ giving it a fascination similar to Robert Frost’s ‘road less traveled.’  I’m thinking of combining the Nisga’a Memorial lava bed with paintings of other parts less painted for an exhibition. This could include Hot Springs Cove,  Macaulay Point Park, the Burgess Shale, the Paint Pots, the Treasure of Siwidi, HighRock Park, and The Towers. Disqualified from ‘Parts less painted’ because they have been photographed so much, are: Skill-testing HighwaySigns, Rainforest Rooster, and Harbour Ferry Ballet 

The Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park is about 80 kilometres north of Terrace, near the Nisga’a villages of Gitlakdamix and Gitwinksihlkw. The Tseax Cone, the red oval  in the upper right quadrant of the painting, was the source of Canada’s most recent volcanic eruption and lava flow, a geological disaster that killed an estimated 2000 people around the year 1700.

History of Design V

This page from the History of Design shows where the fifth cross-cultural ‘time capsule’ I compiled last year fits in. Last June I wrote about what the fourteenth century CE looked like around the world. 

The paintings in that blog post show the blue-highlighted locations in the table above.

Defending British North America

Macaulay Point Park

Watercolour and oil pastel

©2019 Charlene Brown

This is the view from the battalion command post of the remains of a coastal defence installation, active from the 1890s to the end of the Second World War. The British Navy, which had been based in Esquimalt Harbour since the 1840s, built the gun emplacements, tunnel system and ammunition stores initially because of a perceived threat from Russia. The point was manned 24/7 throughout both World Wars, but was disarmed and the tunnels and buildings sealed in the late 1940s.

Much of the site, including the two remaining gun emplacements and one tunnel, is easily accessible to the hundreds of runners and dog walkers who frequent this spectacular park, and the whole place is quite fascinating to climb around in. Exceptions to this are ecologically sensitive areas protected by the ubiquitous snake-rail fences I’ve included in the painting.

History of Design IV

This page from the History of Design shows where the fourth cross-cultural ‘time capsule’ I compiled last year fits in. Last August I wrote ‘What the Early Second Millennium CE looked like around the world’ 

The paintings in that blog post show the blue-highlighted locations in the table above.

Another fifteenth century site

Great Zimbabwe

Watercolour and oil pastel

©2019 Charlene Brown

Following a lecture on African Art at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, I've painted another site which will be listed on the History of Design page I will include in my blog post in a couple of weeks - the medieval city of Great Zimbabwe.  It was completed during the late Iron Age in that part of Africa, and according to legend (and Wikipedia) was the capital of the Queen of Sheba. The country of Zimbabwe, which gained independence from Great Britain as Rhodesia in 1980, is named for this important site.

This painting is based on a rearranged version of a Google Streetview photo by David Duplessis taken from the Hill Fort above the ruins of the city.  Here is a link to it.