South America was inhabited for tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the Portuguese and Spanish. For awhile the Brazilian Empire existed, then in the 19th century Uruguay became independent and remains a democracy to this day. Its apparently a politically stable country, although deforestation was profound, it ranks very low on the global forest preservation scale.
Suriname, incidentally, was one of the highest in terms of forest preservation. Clicking around google maps confirmed it, Uruguay was mostly barren grasslands for agriculture with just thin trees around the hilly areas. Unlike other countries in South America, Uruguay is very flat with the highest point being only 500 meters. For this reason, wind and bad weather can blow across the country unabated leading to fierce tornadoes. Another thing they have a lot of is gold and minerals. The painting depicts a rare geode containing amethyst, a purple gemstone, that happens to be shaped like a heart. It is based on a true story, of miners who found a heart-shaped geode. Any reason to use carbazole violet (PV23) is good with me, it one of my favorite, albeit kind of useless, colours in the palette. Dabs of quinacridone purple (PV55) create the reddish-violet hues. The rocky part of the geode was done with orange (PO36, PO73) and prussian blue (PB27) mixes. Prussian blue was one of the first synthetic pigments used in art and textiles, but nowadays, it is more reliable to use phthalo cyanine (PB15) or better yet indo blue (PB60) for dark blue.
World Inspired Landscapes: Uruguay, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2025
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