Olympics Canoe Slalom

Olympics canoe slalom 02 – by Miki

I have been following the Olympics canoe competition over the last days, and I must say that I enjoyed it immensely. As well as a sportswoman as as an artist. That sport has all to excite all my senses and lust for adventure. It has loads of water spinning and jumping around, and the speed, moves and turns just look fabulous. The result being that I could spend the rest of my life painting it! And if I was younger, I would probably start slalom canoe myself. What a pity I have not known about it earlier in my life!

The painting above features the C1 canoe slalom gold medal, the French Tony Estanguet. I was told by my proud parents that Tony was born in Pau, a town in the French Pyrenees, 30 kilometres away from Tarbes, the town where I was born. And that he of course trains in the Pyrenean wild waters! Hard to believe that it was the first time these days that I saw images from this sport. My God, how much more am I missing in my life!

The Olympics make me realise once more how wonderful sport is, and that I would have loved to dedicate my life to it. Of course, I practised myself many sports, and still do quite intensely, but somehow, I have the feeling I had more within me than that. Oh well, I can at least render homage to the professional sport with my art…

Olympics Slalom Canoe 01 – by Miki

This artwork above was the first one I did of canoe slalom. I don’t remember which team it was, but judging by the clothes and boat colours, I think it was the GB tone. But it was not my intention really to feature any particular team, just the sport itself. I had just discovered it and I was over the moon!

Olympics Slalom Canoe 03 – by Miki

This one was from the Czech team, and the reason for me to paint him was simply that he had a pink boat! Well, it was more light pastel purple, but I exaggerated it a little bit, could not help, I love pink!

Olympics Slalom Canoe 04 – by Miki

I just finished this one, featuring the GB silver medal couple in the C2 canoe slalom competition. The GB team won the gold medal as well, and of course, it was delirious in the house here! I am not sure though  that David Florence and Richard Hounslow will recognise themselves on that painting if they ever come to see it, but it was not really my intention. It is not meant as a realistic portrait, but as an impression of these two guys having that fantastic run and giving us so much pleasure and pride!

Anyway, that is for now with the canoe slalom. There are so many other sports to come in the Olympics, and I want to try to feature as many as possible, at least a little bit. A tough job though, difficult to keep up with all these athletes!

These paintings are available directly online as Giclee prints in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the images themselves or on the widgets below to access my shop online.

Olympics Archery

A quickie for now, from the first Olympic competition I saw:

Archery

A very aesthetic sport I must say, quite inspiring to my artist’s eyes…

I had never seen archery in competition before, never even had an arch in my hands, but I remember a time when I wanted to learn it. I might still do it, but will my hands still be steady enough in my old age, where  they are not even steady enough to draw straight lines! Well, to be honest, I don’t like straight lines in art, they always remind me of the bloody technical drawings I had to do at the beginning of my maths&physics studies… I hated them so much! And I don’t like perfect circles either, so of course I am struggling with the Olympics Rings!

Oly, The Olympics Turtle

After I paid homage to the victory of the Ferrari team at the Formula 1 German Grand Prix from  Hockenheim this weekend by giving birth to The Ferrari Turtle,  I thought it was time to do the same with the Olympics. Shame on me really, me who loves sport so much and has a big body of sport artworks, I didn’t even make one painting celebrating the games in London so far! Ah well, probably because everybody else has, and I don’t like to go with the stream…

So here we go. Tonight I could not sleep any more after awakening from a weird dream. I was in a giant castle, with hundred of rooms, and in each room were sitting giant people in Renaissance theatre costumes awaiting me to paint their portraits. But before that I had to paint first the portraits on their own faces, and when they were finished, they had to look at themselves in the mirror, and say if they liked it. Then I would have to reproduce it on big canvasses.  I had only a short time to paint all these portraits and I was running from room to room, trying to optimize the process. Hundred people were following me everywhere, eager to see me painting these portraits, and my stress increased accordingly, a real nightmare! Anyway I woke up when the tension became too strong, happy to have escaped but totally awake. It was 4 AM. My brain was again in turbo mode, thinking about all kinds of things and projects. And among them, a new turtle started to haunt my brain, until I could not think of anything else and had to get up to paint her

Let me introduce you to:

“Oly”, the Olympics Turtle!

Oly, The Olympics Turtle – By Miki

The little beast could not wait until the morning, she had to come out in the middle of the night! She said she was a little bit late already and was not sure if she was going to make it for the Games Opening ceremony on Friday!

She should probably have put the Ferrari gear on, but I guess the rules don’t allow you to carry the Olympics torch on wheels…