Thursday, March 14, 2019

Mongolian roofs

My husband and I spent a year living on the southern edge of the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia in China. I enjoyed the chance to get to know Mongolian culture and fell in love with the roofs!

Traditional Mongolian nomadic houses are called gers (yurt is a Russian word). They are round, made of thick felt, with domed roofs, no windows, and a large wooden door and frame. The roofs (also felt) are often decorated in blue and white, reminiscent of the clouds and huge sky of the Mongolian grasslands.
A small ger.
While we lived there I came up with some designs closely based on what I was seeing around me. Here are some colored pencil drawings I did when we were in China.

As a memory of that part of my life I did a Mongolian roof in my Book. It's a real challenge for me to leave everything so very simple! I always want to do more embellishing. I used gold ink in the central circle and one of the perimeter rings, and attempted to simulate grass by using a scribble technique in green.

4 comments:

  1. What a place to be inspired. Beautiful colors and forms. I wish I could hear more about your experience.

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  2. Wow - what beautiful shapes - perfect as strings to tangle around. How wonderful that the places you've lived some time ago are still feeding into your art today!

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  3. Margaret, The things you come up with are so exciting! I would love to have a beautiful roof top on my house. Maybe I could talk to the guy who shingles the roof. Do you think he would layout a beautiful design like this? These interpretations are beautiful! Thanks for sharing

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  4. Helpful info. Fortunate me I found your website by accident, and I’m surprised why this coincidence did not took place earlier! I bookmarked it.

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