Racks for Drying and Storing my Oil Paintings

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Oil paintings take time to dry, perhaps three to six months to get them very dry. This means by then they don't get tacky when leaning against each other. In the meantime, they have to be kept separate from touching each other. This means suitable racks.

I have been building up my racks for drying and storing these stretched canvas paintings. The individual items of the racks are bought from Ikea, the furniture chain store. You can see them in the picture below. There are nylon fishing lines stretching tight between the paintings to keep them separate.

Give Us Clean Water

This is the photo (not too well taken) of my oil painting showing three composite scenes. On bottom left, a child is shown scooping dirty water from a stagnant pond for drinking. On bottom, a child is shown using a cheap but non-permanent solution to dirty water, sucking water through a special filter. At top centre is shown a long-term, but more expensive solution. It is a properly constructed deep well. It is cement lined with a rim around the well to avoid dirty water going back down the well shaft. Size of oil painting 30 x 36 in.

"The failure to provide safe drinking water and adeaquate sanitation services to all people is perhaps the greatest development failure of the 20th century. The worst consequence of this failure is the high rate of motality among young children from preventable water-related diseases."

Child Soldier

This picture shows my oil painting showing a sad looking young girl soldier holding a gun that can kill. Size 30 x 30 in. Click image to enlarge.

It is a regrettable fact that throughout history and in many parts of the world, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns even when such practices were against cultural morals. Some of these children are orphans, while some are captured and kidnapped. They are then easily trained and forced to kill.

Our Upside Down World

This complex painting needs a bit of explanation. Ideally, to see the eight sectors of this round composite painting well on the computer, you'd need to rotate your r screen. It is not planned to be hung up vertically on the wall like other paintings. Instead, it is planned to look like a round ceiling painting. The viewer stands underneath at the centre looking up facing outwards while rotating.

In reality, the oil painting is to be hung facing down underneath the ceiling. It is built up of four square stretched canvas paintings joined together. The total size is 6 x 6 ft.

In terms of content, the painting is built up from four pairs of paintings of scenes that are viewed from above. Each painting pair shows two contrasting scenes, or scenes before and after disasters. Together, they serve to illustrate how upside down the world can be, arising from recent events.

On the top left of the photo above, the painting pair shows our world's rich poor divide. One of them shows the glittering night scene of the gambling/entertainmemt city Las Vegas. The other shows the tents at a crowded refugee camp where people including women and children are living in subsistence conditions.

The painting pair on top right shows people and their crops in poor countries are badly affected by bad climate conditions, either severe drought or deadly flooding.

The painting pair on botom right shows a over-crowded over-loaded ferry boat with a few hundred on board before and after it was overturned by stormy seas drowning many on board.

On bottom left, the painting pair shows the New York World Trade Centre Twin Towers before and after they were attacked causing the two tall buildings to burn and collapse completely. A few thousand people died from this horrid event.

Modern History - #16, #17

These are the last two in my series of oil paints depicting significant events or people in the modern world.

On the left, painting #16 symbolically depicts the final tsunami or global financial crisis sweeping across the world starting from the New York Wall Street since September 2008.

Painting #17 on the right depicts the tough efforts by political and financial leaders in many countries trying to save the world from being drown in a sea of recession since September 2008. Economic recoveries are still not certain at the US, Japan and Europe.

These six panels of 17 paintings can form another mini-series. Like the earlier mini-series, this can also be displayed at a semi-formal show.

Modern History - #13, #14, #15

Continuing on the series of my oil paintings on significant events and people in modern history.

On the left, painting #13 is a semi-abstract depiction of the internet revolution that has, since the 1990s, caused a paradigm change in the world's business, economic and many other human activies, anc causing the world to change faster and faster.

Painting #14 at the centre shows the twin tower of the New York World Trade Center were in thick damaging flame before their final collapse killing thousands on the eventful morning of Sept 11, 2001. This was the result of deadly attacks on the US by the al Qaeda terorist group lead by Osama bin Laden.

On the right, painting #15 is a composite showing two events. One was a bronze statue of Saddam Hussain in Baghdad being pulled down. The other shows a gaint Buddha statues in Afghanistan before and after bombing destruction by the Taliban forces. These depict the US lead Iraq 'war' from 2003 and Afghanistan 'war' from 2001. Both 'wars' keep dragging on for so many year and the US has not been able to end.

Modern History - #10, #11, #12

Continuing on my series of oil paintings on significant events or people in modern history.

On the left, painting #10 shows the two leaders Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR and Richard Nixon of the US angrily facing each other. It depicts the all out confrontation between the two camps in the 1960s during the Cold War.

Painting #11 at the centre shows the comforting relations between the two leaders Margaret Thratcher of the UK and Ronald Reagan of the US. It depicts how they effectively advocate the free market economic system in the Western world since the 1980s.

On the right, painting #12 shows a man dramatically wielding a long hammer to try and break down the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin. It depicts the collapse and breakup of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, ending the Cold War at around 1990.