Flags from Around The World 01

As I said in my last post, “Market Places from Around The World”:

“…I have recently been a little more active in my artists community “Fine Art America”, having found some more time and above all pleasure and comfort in participating in the social life there. I have to overcome some immensely deep sadness because of the sudden death of my brother, and the best way to do it, for me, apart from travelling, is to meet people… without really meeting them! I am more of a lonely wolf, but I love communication and exchange, so interaction on the internet and especially in a nice artists community such as FAA is, is very appropriate….”

Having enjoyed the contest about the market places I am hosting there, I decided yesterday to start a new context about “Flags”. I had just finished an artwork from Essaouira, that wonderful harbour town in Morocco, and I thought “flags” would be a great theme for a contest.

All media are accepted, painting, drawing and photographs. Paintings, drawings and photographs where flags play an important role. It can be the flag from a country, a state, an association, an event, etc…The winner will be featured in this blog, perhaps even interviewed if I get inspired by the winning work. You have to belong to FAA to be able to take part, and if you are, and fancy a go, you are very much welcome.  Here is the contest link, where you can submit your work.

“Flags”

but hurry up,  the contest ends on June the 14th.

I have in fact many artworks where flags play an important part. The one below was sketched in Lisbon, in a street market.

It was in 2008, and while we were there, Portugal had reached the quarter finals of the Football Euro Tournament 2008  and Portuguese flags were hanging everywhere! Once we even saw a donkey crossing a street with a flag on his back, it was hilarious! That donkey though, made us decide to support Portugal, we bought a flag and travelled around with it on our Boomobile.

The scene above was sketched in Vila Cha, a parish in the municipality of Vila do Conde, situated in the Northern region of Portugal. Unfortunately they lost the quarter final to Germany, and the flags hysteria stopped… Well, speaking about football, I saw in Vila Cha another interesting motif with flags, a statue on the roof of a building in honour of FC Porto…

Let us go to Italy now, more precisely to Tuscany. It was in 2011, I was on a long painting trip there, and I had made a series about shops and restaurants entrances.  In this particular one, I found it very funny how “the girl” is carrying the Italian flag, and wearing a hat and a dress in the design of the flag, but with a  panel on her chest saying:

“we speak Russian”

Let’s go to Cyprus now, in 2012, and get more serious. A very fast sketch of the local hero Archbishop Makarios III, and in the background three flags, and I  do not remember which ones they were, and the sketch is so basic that it does not give any clue! Probably, Cyprus, Greece, and…?

I certainly have many more paintings with flags from the countries which I visited, but for now I will go to another kind of flag, not from a country, but from a sports event, The Olympic Games. The following two paintings were inspired by two gold medals winners in London in 2012. First, the winner of the high jump competition, the Russian Ivan Ukhov

And the next one is inspired by the winner of the  female 100 metres hurdles, the Australian Sally Pearson. In my fun artwork , I replaced her with Oly’ver The Kangaroo, jumping through the Olympic rings!

Well, this will do for now, but I will do a second post in the next few days with more flags artworks. I thought I should just show you a selection of artworks featuring flags, to give you an idea if you want to participate to the contest. In any case, go and have a look at the images already submitted, they are really interesting!