Lotuses and lily pads

I love images of lotuses and lily pads, and it must be because of the cold, cold winter that these tropical images are really appealing to me at the moment. Above is a photograph I recently took of two illustrations of mine with real rose petals and fake lotuses that I bought a long time ago in Thailand.

A photo shoot from Korean Vogue.

At the temple of Angkor wat lotus gatherers collect flowers each day at dawn. In the far east, lotuses have a religious significance as divine figures were thought to be born from them, and people even go lotus viewing carrying lotus shaped lanterns.

These giant lily pads are the largest in the world and are found in the Amazon basin. They can carry the weight of rabbit sized animals.

Tutankhamun

I finally got around to paying a visit to the King Tutankhamun exhibition, which is currently on at the O2 centre in Greenwich, London and it was amazing. Eleven galleries of the most beautiful, precious things was almost too much to take in and a little overwhelming. Most of these pictures are from the great book that accompanies the exhibition with photographs by Sandro Vannini. Above is a picture of the miniature version of the coffin.

I love the combination of lapis blue and gold, and the stylised way of doing feathers or blue lotus petals (as on this alabaster vase above).

Below is Tutankhamun's more informal crown.

I also like it when designers take inspiration from ancient Egypt, as Alexander McQueen did in last year's autumn/winter collection.

Fashion images courtesy of www.vogue.com

I have only done one Egyptian style painting (of which you can see a small detail below), but after this exhibition I will definitely do more! See www.tutankhamunexhibition.co.uk for more details. This exhibition is on until the 30th of August.