Australia, fine art and online auctions

The hidden side of Australia

You know, Australia isn’t just about exotic nature and groovy nightlife. It has rich culture, too. Actually one of the oldest in the world! That’s because Australia had long been severed from the rest of the continents and had thus developed its own indigenous culture, without any outer influences. If you ever happen to be here, you should definitely visit the National Museum of Australia and places like Namadgi National Park where you can see ancient carvings made on cave walls by the first people. Some of them are 40,000 years old! And most importantly, many of these traditions have survived until today. In aboriginal tribes, you can still meet wood carvers and basket weavers doing the same thing as their ancestors thousands of years ago.

Our first steps in online business

I actually have students who come from native Australian families and are closely familiar with these crafts. One of the guys, Jim, makes great clay pots while his sister Ell paints on tree bark. We even organized our own fine art exhibition which was pretty successful on the local scale. That’s when I came up with an idea of setting up a couple of fine art auctions to sell the stuff and buy what we need for our classes. My colleagues recommended trying fine art auctions online. That’s basically the same as real auctions, only you don’t have to sweat in the hall while the hammer is going down. So we followed that advice and when we saw the fine art auction results, we couldn’t believe our eyes! I won’t go into detail, I’ll just say the money we earned were enough to buy new brush sets for the entire class.

And for dessert…

But the internet isn’t only great when you want to sell something. There are a lot of amazing artists who run their own websites where you can see and buy their works. And the online gallery of Leonid Afremov is one of them. Paintings by this artist attract me with their bright palette and unique style. In short, it can be described like this:

·         Very rich, vivid palette

·         Great amount of contrasts

·         Abundant use of light

·         Large swishing strokes

·         Dense stroke arrangement

Altogether, it looks totally great! If you haven’t seen any of the pics by Leonid Afremov yet, you definitely should! His gallery is always open and you’re welcome to drop by.

New stars in the old sky

Australia is peculiar in many ways. One of them is our sky map. Did you know that Australian constellations are totally different from those you’re used to seeing in the Northern hemisphere? That’s right, these are no Ursa Major, Cassiopeia and others of the sort. None of those shapes you’d look for in the night sky back home. Instead, we have the mysterious Tucana, Phoenix and of course the Southern Cross. Here is a photo of this constellation that marks the South Pole of our planet http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080707.html. Locals know it by another name, though. Since ancient times, aboriginal tribes have referred to it as ‘the Emu in the sky.’ If you look close, you can really see its body and head outlined by several dark nebulas against the Milky Way. By the way, there is a nice Australian legend for it too. Long ago, people here believed that after death their soul would be taken by a mystical canoe down the sky river. I like to use that image in my meditation, fancying myself hovering among the stars, taking in their energy and light… The sight of the night sky makes me feel so free and inspired! When you are in Australia, you can’t miss a single minute of your time, be it day or night!

Good day everyone!

I’m Ithon McNeal and I’m lucky to live in the best country on our planet. Can you guess which one? Right, Australia! Every morning I watch the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean from the window of my bedroom and go out to surf along the Great Barrier Reef. That’s probably why I decided to become an artist. I teach painting at a local school and I’m absolutely happy with my job. When you spend a lot of time with kids, you remember how it is to be a kid yourself. Sometimes I can’t even tell who’s teaching whom! Many of my students come from aboriginal families with strong cultural traditions which makes it even more exciting. Keep up if you wanna learn more!