pirating the caribbean

[trinidad 2010, hand-coloured collagraph on paper on canvas]Trinidad has become the working title for this small abstract on canvas, as returned by an analysis & association of colour values (read more about my colour values)... the vibrant stripes do seem to echo the colours of carnival, and the structures of the makeshift tin and brick settlements or shanty towns of the Carribbean, places which, despite their obvious veneer of poverty, still resonate with a resourceful and determined spirit.[trinidad, another view]This is a photograph of the Laventille hills in the Port of Spain, Trinidad.If one only chooses to see the poverty and crime associated with these supposed slum settlements of the Carribbean, then one would also miss out on witnessing the cultural homeland of carnival, calypso music, and the uplifting rhythms and beats of steelpan bands......Back in June 2003, I took this photograph of the neighbour's old tin shed (which backed onto the boundary of our two gardens). Shortly after, the (then new) neighbour took down the delapidated shed. I remarked at the time that I quite liked seeing the rusty facade of the shed (from my side), to which he replied:  'ah, you must be an artist'.However, the neighbour, being a resourceful diy type, re-used what was salvagable from the wreck, and parts of it later re-appeared as a boundary fence at the bottom of the garden. So, I am still able to marvel at the myriad colours of rust in the metal corrugation, a found painting that I can see day after day.

the Italian job

I've snatched another title for this piece (and one for the post), again just using my colour values system...[Tuscany, mixed media collagraph and painting on canvas]I got carried away, taking these photographs, using some rough-prepped canvases as a backdrop...As luck would have it, google images returned a suitably idyllic vista as visual reference, a Tuscan sunset...And all this brought back some memories. Although I have never stayed in Tuscany, I once travelled through it. At the age of 18 (although I think I must have been 19 by the time we returned), I back-packed with two other friends across Europe, travelling through Italy by train, stopping off at Milan, Venice, Bologna, Pisa, Rome, Naples (and Pompeii), and then on to the port of Brindisi... I don't remember the landscape looking like this...I managed to complete three more of these collagraph canvases today, their titles and back stories to be revealed in future posts. We have had three days of intermittent power-cuts, for no apparent reason, resulting in having to heat water for tea in a pan on the fire and toasting hot-cross buns, which taste so much better in a crisis...