A constructed environment

from w
Though it's more common for an artist to draw inspiration (and perspiraton) from the natural world, landscape, flowers, and so on, sometimes it is interesting to look at constructed environments such as golf courses and tourist resorts where the owners alter the land and seaside with enormous detail to create a beautiful place for visitors. The new seven-star resort owned by the Red Bull millionaire in Laucala Island Fiji (not that I like Red Bull as those kind of drinks make heart rates go crazy on teenagers) has such a changed landscape, down to every detail of stone, water, wood, plants. A friend of Peceli works there and gave Peceli a copy of Mailife magazine that featured the resort. I copied one photo to look at the extent of the details, the thatch of the roof, the stones, the seating, the doorways. When I looked at the photo via Picasa I realized I have missed some of the little details. Okay... (I have time to draw today. Peceli returned from Fiji Sunday night but this morning flew over to Hobart for the funeral of a friend and colleague, Rev Aminiasi Qalo.)

It will cost you $35,000 a night in the best part of the resort! Or over $1 million a day to rent the whole island. Of course this is outrageously different to the housing of ordinary people in Fiji and my motto has always been 'live simply that others my simply live.' However I am interested in the way the designers of this resort have used stone, wood, thatch and earth colours. They even have thatch on the aeroplane hangars so that our eye is not disturbed by shiny metal! Perhaps it is all too much and a lighter touch for a tropical island might have been wiser where real beauty is already there in the landscape and of course in the people who work there. Other pictures will be on the babasiga blog.Okay I know the colours are different but pencils do have their limitations.