Thursday, February 19, 2015

You can’t get there from here anymore

(click on image to enlarge)

A busy day in downtown Petra
Watercolour and crayon
©2015 Charlene Brown

A few weeks ago, I posted a ‘bleached,distressed, colourized photograph taken at Kerak, a Crusader castle in southern Jordan.  
At the time I was reminded that I have always hoped to return to Jordan, especially Petra - sometimes described as the ‘rose-red city, half as old as time...’ - to paint a really exuberant picture of the Nabatean and Roman structures carved into the cliff face there. 
But going to Jordan isn’t what it used to be. Apparently there are still a few tourists going to Petra, but I’m not going to be one of them until things settle down.  I based 'A busy day in downtown Petra' on this careful little sketch I made after a very brief visit to Petra in 1993.