In this Friday, December 4, 2018 photo, a half sunken cruise ship lays on its side, in the Gulf of Elefsina, west of Athens. Dozens of abandoned cargo and passenger ships lie semi-submerged or completely sunken around the Gulf of Elefsina, near Greece’s major port of Piraeus. Now authorities are beginning to remove the dilapidated ships. Some of them have been there for decades, leaking hazards like oil into the environment and creating a danger to modern shipping. One expert calls the abandoned ships “an environmental bomb”. (Photo by Thanassis Stavrakis/AP Photo)

This aerial picture taken on August 16, 2020, shows the MV Wakashio bulk carrier that had run aground and broke into two parts near Blue Bay Marine Park, Mauritius. A ship that has leaked more than 1,000 tonnes of oil in pristine waters off the Mauritius coast has split into two, its Japanese operator said August 16, 2020. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

The Chinese-flagged cargo ship Yu Zhou Qi Hang, which ran aground near Yehliu Geopark as a result of rough weather relating to typhoon Kong-rey, is seen in Yehliu on November 1, 2024. Taiwan on November 1 raced to remove 284 tonnes of oil from the Chinese carrier that ran aground off the island after losing power in rough seas as Typhoon Kong-rey neared. (Photo by I-Hwa Cheng/AFP Photo)

Syrian girls carry bags with bread as people queue up outisde a bakery in a rebel held neighbourhood in the northern city of Aleppo on July 12, 2016. Since mid-2012, Aleppo has been roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east, and has suffered enormous destruction in the war that has killed more than 280,000 people nationwide. Last week, a government advance brought regime troops within firing range of the Castello Road, the only remaining supply route into the opposition-held east, effectively severing rebel neighbourhoods from the outside world. With their route to the outside world cut, there is no new flour coming to the city's bakeries, and fuel to light their ovens is also now hard to find. (Photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP Photo)

Maine-based Robert Dowling Jr. creates wonderfully whimsical stories with a slightly surreal touch. The self-taught artist, who works primarily in acrylics and oils, often paints characters with their faces covered or turned away. Love art like this that both children and adults can enjoy in their own unique way.

I would like to tell you why many artists, who like me, have painted portraits and landscapes in oils on canvas, worked with acrylics, watercolors, and pen and ink drawings, have turned to the art of gourd carving.

Israeli designer HIlla Shamia has found a way to mix “oil and water” or aluminum and wood – two materials I’ve never seen fused together. The product designer has created a novel way to meld both poured aluminum with irregular wood chunks to create modern tables and benches with a warm industrial feel. Old world and new world in one.

Nepalese Hindu devotees offer oil lamps in the Bagmati River as they observe the festival of Bala Chaturdashi in the early morning hours at the Pashupati Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, 28 November 2016. Seven kinds of seeds – paddy, barley, sesame, wheat, gram, maize and finger millet – are sown around the temple premises in the name of loved ones departed during the last three years, in the belief that the departed souls will receive salvation. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha)