Painting the Olympics -- with a dash of vodka
The opening ceremony for the Pyeongchang Olympics was so cold that artist Marc Ahr used vodka to stop his paint freezing and when his brush threatened to turn to ice he popped it in his mouth.
The ongoing Games in South Korea are the 55-year-old's 15th Olympics in a row, a sequence stretching back to the Winter Games in Albertville, in his native France, in 1992.
He has painted opening ceremonies and events at every Olympics since, but even for Ahr, the biting sub-zero temperatures at the curtainraiser on February 9 were something new.
"It was minus something, so I even bring some -- shh -- some vodka inside to put in the water, and I could do a little bit of colouring," Ahr said, peering conspiratorially about him should anyone hear that he sneaked alcohol into the opening ceremony.
"I put the vodka in a small bottle and put the vodka in my water colours so it doesn't freeze.
"It's not the same effect (as with water), but it's nice, it gives it a marble effect.
"And my brush -- it's not very good for my health -- I put it inside my jacket (under his armpit) or in my mouth... Otherwise it's ice."
The result of his endeavours -- he expects to finish one water-colour painting a day over the fortnight of the Olympics -- will be made into prints and sold.
He keeps the originals to add to the large body of work that he has built up over the last three decades. He hopes that one day they will all go on show in a gallery. (AFP)
