Tag Archives: scratchboard

On my way to Ghana, Togo and Benin

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Long time no blog. I’ve been putting too many hours in at the office and haven’t blogged for a while so it’s time to remedy that. I’m writing this from the Singapore Airlines business class lounge – very swish – in Bangkok airport. I have a new trip planned to gather reference material for my art and, as I simply have to every now and then, I’m off back to Africa. This time it’s West Africa. I grew up in Africa and have re-visited many many times but I’ve never been to the west, so here’s to a new adventure. It’s a complicated route to get there; Adelaide – Singapore (one night) – Bangkok – Frankfurt (one night) – Accra in Ghana (and the same route back). The long trip is made all the more bearable because it’s business class all the way – I came across many Star Alliance points when special offers where being dished out and the dollar was in my favour so my luxury ticket has cost less than an economy fare. Don’t I feel clever (for once!).

I’m spending 21 days going through Ghana, Togo and Benin and I know I’ve got some very cool places to go to such as a village of 10,000 people who live in the middle of a lake on stilt houses, and another village of two story mud huts. Of course, wild animals are in my itinerary too and my camera is going to get a serious workout.

I’ll be back with a vengeance on this blog with new art and experiences, but for a while, I will definitely lose wi-fi. That’s the way an adventure should be!

Some trips are pure gold for art

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I was recently looking through my art (which is all carefully catalogued on my computer and in various other safe havens) and it struck me that my trip to Africa in 2009 was amazingly successful in generating ideas and references for my work. It was my sixth trip back home since I left at the age of fourteen but for some reason, this one made such an amazing impression that all this art poured out of me. One thing that definitely contributed was that this was the first time I had taken a really good digital SLR so not only could I keep clicking away, but I could also get in really close. I have compiled all of the pieces I’ve done from that one trip into the image below. It really is quite incredible how some travels affect you more than others and that trip was a corker!! It was through six different southern African Countries, seeing the most incredible sights. So here is a pictorial record of hundreds of hours at the desk or easel. The montage was thrown together pretty much willy-nilly but it gives an idea of how good that trip was. The scale of each image is not relative, some are much bigger than others in real life. There are three different mediums represented – scratchboard, pastels and oils.