Artistandalucia
I have
missed out something important that happened in 2008 Myself and two
others formed a small group of painters and created a web page for
our art. There were just us three in the beginning, but within weeks
more joined.
Over a
couple of years we had the spur of competition and the quality of our
artwork improved. I was still enjoying painting and some of my best
pictures were from this time. Now in 2012 I am the only one remaining
of the original three who created Artistandalucia. I maintain the
page and we all share the cost.
My
pictures of the time
Cigerillo
is a watercolor copy of a painting by Joaqin Sorolla, my favourite
Spanish artist.
Man's
Science is a statement about humanity.
I wanted to convey a message.
"Man's
science will develop and grow, whilst we remain animals. In time, our
machines will come to understand us for what we are, then leave us
behind forever."
I also
painted myself into the picture. I am at the front just below the
nude woman.
Pegasus:
This painting was on canvas stretched over a bastido of wood. It
weighed practically nothing. I took it to an outdoor art market and
lay it on the ground. The wind came up and lifted the canvas and
frame into the air and propelled it into a friend's face, who was
also unloading her artwork. The wooden frame blacked her eye and
forever afterwards this painting was called Pegasus, the flying
horse.
Conil de la frontera
This painting was inspired after a day on the beach and copious amounts of beer. On this part of the Atlantic coast of Andalucia there is a secies of pine tree called the stone pine or umbrella pine. In my painting I have stylized them a little, but the sunset was real enough. I have put in the photo I painted from so you can compare.
Sierra
nevada, On a sightseeing trip in the
springtime to Cabo del Gatos I drove past the Sierra Nevadas. (Snowy
mountins.) As I approached Granada I noticed a strange cloud
formation on the horizon. I was watching the traffic on the motorway
and listening to the radio, so my attention was distracted. The
weather for the previous week had been constant rain and I had not
connected the significance of last weeks weather to my location. As I
drove along I uneasily watched the cloud formation as it grew. A
third of my windscreen was filled with cloud, which more and more
became less like cloud and more like something I had never seen
before. These were the snow covered Sierras Nevadas reaching up to
where clouds usually are. The previous week's rain had fallen as snow
on the Sierras and they looked majestic in the sunlight as I drove
along the flat valley bottom.
Dappled
stallion. This was painted form a
photograph. The original horse was all white When I had finished I
realized that the mass of white from the horse's shoulders was
overpowering the rest of the picture, so I painted grey dapples and
toned down the white. I think it worked.
The
Zeppelin bar is a collage of memories
of good times. It is made up scenes I remember as separate events,
but painted and concentrated into one picture.
The
people in the picture are still there. The chef on the left is still
my neighbour Diego. The man playing the guitar is my teacher of
Flamenco guitar, Danni.
The
people have not changed much, but Olvera and Andalucia has. The
Zeppelin has gone, but like the smile of the Cheshire cat, it lingers
in the form of La
Jornada, a journal and webpage created by various members of the
young Olvera society to promote culture in the pueblo. They host and
encourage emerging bands, several of the members teach in the Olvera
school of music, whilst others are active in the theatre and as writers.
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