The IAAA Nicaragua Workshop 2007

The IAAA (International Association of Astronomical Artists), of which I am a member, organizes workshops every 18 - 24 months. These workshops take place in environments such as Death Valley, Iceland, Hawaii, Moscow - places where you can find landscapes resembling the rocky hills of Mars, the lava fields of Venus or the desolation of the Moon. The IAAA artists paint together, give presentations of their work, discuss art and astronomy, and sometimes even put together a joint exhibition.
Below are photos, sketches and even a radio ad, created during the latest IAAA Workshop which took place in Nicaragua in February 2007. The volcanos, lava fields and geysers were quite an inspiration!

I continued to write my blog during my stay in Nicaragua. For a chronicle of our expeditions up active volcanos, down bat-filled lava tubes and into cragged canyons, click here.

To view photos taken during our stay in Nicaragua, check out my on-line photo album here.

Just for giggles: we made a radio ad to promote our "Cosmic Vision" exhibition which was on show at the Casa de los tres Mundos in Granada during our workshop. The promo ran on Granada's "Radio Volcan" once every two hours for a week. I'm the "English voice", trying out my best BBC accent (with limited success...). Click here for the MP3 file (2.8MB).

For some of my sketches click here.

Links

Casa de los Tres Mundos
The art institute where we showed out "Cosmic Vision" exhibition. We also worked in one of their studios.
www.c3mundos.org

IAAA website
Official website of the International Association of Astronomical Artists.
www.iaaa.org

Nicaragua Workshop Webpage
Page of Nicaragua Workshop organizer Erik Victor.
workshop.swampbuster.org

Kara's Chronicles
IAAA president Kara Szathmary chronicled this workshop's exciting events. To download this illustrated diary in pdf format, click here:
KaraChronicle.pdf

Hotel Patio del Malinche
The charming hotel where the IAAA crew spent their nights.
www.patiodelmalinche.com

The IAAA "Cosmic Vision" exhibition received three reviews: two in Nicaragua's national newspaper "La Prensa", and one in "El Nuevo Diario". To read the article entitled Astronautas en Granada, click here (the article is in Spanish, but there's a nice image of one of David Hardy's paintings accompanying the text).
To read the longer article Paisajes astronómicos (also in Spanish, and with even more nice pics), click here.
To read Arte espacial en Casa de Los Tres Mundos, click here (also in Spanish, there don't seem to be any pictures).