World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar

 

Qatar is unique in being the only country starting with the letter Q, and it is one of the longest populated countries with evidence of stone-age habitation 50,000 years ago. The country is a small piece of land protruding from the Arabian peninsula, historically its was a major supplier of purple dye and precious pearls. In modern times it is a major energy producer in the form of oil, gas, and a growing solar power industry. Mostly flat desert, Qatar has an enormous capacity to develop solar power. Unfortunately it also means they are among the most water-stressed countries in the world. They get water from rainfall collection, from Saudi Arabia, and about half from desalinization. That is the process of removing salt from ocean water to make it drinkable. Desalinization takes enormous amounts of energy because salt does not like to be removed from water easily, and it also results in large volumes of salt as a byproduct. With water resources diminishing and seawater rising, desalinization will be required more for some countries to get fresh water. In Canada we have huge amounts of fresh water, in fact, Montreal is completely surrounded by it. 

The painting shown above is the third version I did, it features a flat tropical landscape with palm trees on a beach, along with towering skyscrapers silhouetted against a sunset. the colour scheme is 'primary' that is, blue, yellow red and green, with dark magenta in the buildings. Its neither warm, nor cool, rather, in the middle in terms of colour temperature.

World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar v3, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2024

 

Here is the second version, it has a streamlined composition compared to the first version (below), and I added the palm trees as an afterthought. I liked the idea of the palm trees and beach, but it was not very clear in this version. Also, the sunset looked weird, like a donut or something, so in the third and final version I enveloped the sun in a smooth colour transition, pushing the blue to the upper corners.

World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar v2

 

In the first version I established the general idea of a brilliant sunset with a rolling desert in the foreground. It looked thin, so I added the towering skyscrapers which really define much of the Qatar landscape based on the internet research. The design had potential, but the landscape was too undulating for a flat country, and the colours scheme was too brown all around since the purple mixed with the yellow ochre. In quick succession I did the other two versions making improvements with each iteration. The iterative method is to get an idea down, then figure out what are the strengths and weaknesses, then adapt accordingly to get to a final version you are satisfied with. Its more of a studio method, where you can go get a cup of coffee in between sessions. On location, I have to get it right the first time, although in some instances I will return to a location multiple times until I get it right. For example Chair in a Field of Yellow Buttercups, was done after several attempts on location.

World Inspired Landscapes: Qatar v1