Motel Carpark

Dear Readers

Here's more evidence of my fascination with motels. This is a motel we've stayed at numerous times, although we don't need to now, because we moved to the town where this motel is. 

Motel 1 by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

The owner of this painting said, "This painting tells me all I need to know about motel carparks".

Motels and hotels

We were staying at a small hotel in Sydney recently. Some of the guests seemed to have strange nocturnal habits. Lying in bed in the early hours of the morning, I was trying to figure out what on earth people could possibly be doing, by piecing together all the noises they were making. I worked out that a young couple staying there were in the habit of taking their pet goose for a drive every two hours throughout the night.

It was incredibly humid in Sydney, as is fairly typical of February. It's always interesting though. We checked out Kinokuniya Bookshop in the city. They have a huge range of art books and great air-conditioning. I bought a book full of Art Nouveau patterns.

Motels are on my mind again as an idea for creating images. I've just finished a repeat pattern painting of motels, inspired by kimono fabrics. The image below shows another of my motel paintings:

Image: The Citysider by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.

PS. Check out this link to the Australian Bookplate Design Awards for 2015. My two entries are shown among many other fine bookplates. There were hundreds of entries for this popular competition. One of my entries shown on the site appears in an earlier blog post, and the other features a gentleman wearing a panama hat and trying to read amid cement mixers and barking dogs.

Motels

I love to do paintings of motels. I’ve stayed in lots of motels. The look of them is fascinating, with the carpark and the long, low rows of rooms.

You know it’s a special motel when they give you those little packets of biscuits in your room. And if you’re really lucky, you get a couple of sachets of hot chocolate mix among the tea and coffee makings.

As long as it's a quiet room with a comfortable bed.

The motel below was interesting, because it had a kind of tunnel you drive through to get to the carpark and the rooms.

Image: Motel 3 by Alisa Perks. Gouache on paper.