Azerbaijan, World Inspired Landscapes

Soon people will start travelling more as the Province relaxes the advisories related to the COVID-19 lockdown. We all hope it is gone for good but this type of virus has been around since the beginning of time, and it will be around forever in some capacity hopefully not as bad as this one. I expect that some public behaviours, and the way the health care system responds to infectious diseases will be changed. Infectious diseases used to be the number one cause of death until heart disease, stroke, and cancer overtook it, at least in developed countries. In fact, more people have died of those other causes than COVID-19 infection in the past six months, but we don't talk at all about reducing heart disease, stroke and cancer. It is odd that way, even HIV/AIDS kills far more people, around 20 million per year, and malaria, but they are seldom discussed or worried about in society

Oh yeah, this blog was supposed to be about the latest 'World Inspired Landscape', featuring Azerbaijan a small country in Eurasia on the Caspian sea and surrounded by several countries including Armenia which was recently featured in Armenia, World Inspired Landscape featuring The Stoneground Paint Co. There was a lot of imagery on Azerbaijan available on the internet, I used many sources and finally created this design from memory and impressions, it is totally original. When the library reopens for borrowing, I want to add book sources but for now I had to rely on internet for my research. Azerbaijan is famous for 'mud volcanoes' which are small to large eruptions of mud that create swirls and textures across the flat lands, they dry and crack in the sun. The painting shows a kind of Mars or Moon-scape using a variety of iron oxide paints and some bloodstone genuine. For contrast, I included a lush temparate scene with cool water and rolling hills in the distance which signifies the abrupt transitions in landscape that I observed in the imagery of Azerbaijan.

8 x 10" cold press (cut from Arches 22x30), watercolour, 2020