World Inspired Landscapes: Tuvalu

 

Tuvalu is the last country starting with the letter T, as you might predict the next countries start with the letter U, but can you name all seven countries that start with the letter U? Tuvalu is in the remote Oceania region which includes countries like the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, and a country I haven't painted yet, Vanuatu.  Speaking of numbers, the word Tuvalu translates into 'eight islands' which refers to the historical eight islands that made up this small country in the Pacific Ocean. It was part of a British "protectorate", which seems like a polite form of colonial racketeering, until its full independence in the 1970's. In ancient times, the seafaring Polynesian peoples were the first inhabitants of these remote islands, they were apparently uninhabited prior to that. Many scientists have gone there to study coral reefs and to explore the flora and fauna. In World War 2 it was a staging ground for US bases launching attacks into Japanese-occupied Pacific islands. With rising sea levels, Tuvalu has actually been growing in size, although unevenly since the changing properties of the sea push sand upwards out of the coral reefs and onto land. The process eventually will tip towards loss of surface area. Australia has an agreement with Tuvalu to provide infrastructure support, to protect the culture, and to offer immigration to Australia due to rising sea levels that affect Tuvalu's inhabitants. That sounds more like a positive type of protectorate, more countries need to help the smaller countries threatened by climate change. 

The painting was done from images of seashells from Tuvalu, there were a set of stamps with seashell images, and a few tourist posters on the internet. I don't know the exact names of each seashell but they are painted with enough accuracy to be identified. The one on the bottom left is from a clam, probably a giant clam, well, a baby giant clam perhaps. The brown one with spots is the type of shell that used to be used as currency in  the ancient world,  they are called cowrie snails, and I mentioned them in the Maldives painting. Just looking at the old blogs for this series and the view counts are pretty high for some of them, version 1 of Micronesia has 79 views! For the Tuvalu painting, the 'landscape' was actually the sandy beach, although the sand literally comes from the seashells after the disintegrate. The top right seashell was almost identical in colour to the sand. I researched the exact colour of the sand, it was a slightly orange-leaning tan colour. Yellow ochre (PY43) was dabbed in, did you know yellow ochre pigment contains silicates, which are the same compound that makes up some forms of sand.

World Inspired Landscapes: Tuvalu, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press,  May 2025