Sketching in Saint-Jean-de-Luz

After the lovely days spent in Biarritz, we headed to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a little bit further down the coast, and quite close to Spain. A nice little town with a harbour full of character, quite a lot of motifs for me, but unfortunately I was a little bit tired of drawing these kind of motifs and I didn’t sketch as much there as the place deserved.

This was my very first sketch in the harbour. As Kevin -who had left me alone and gone exploring the town in search if some internet cafe- saw it, he asked:

“who is that guy?”

To tell the truth, that guy was a Japanese girl, who was sitting there with another Japanese girl, both having  their breakfast. And no, I didn’t try to sketch some Japanese girl, I just found the position nice, and a good element for the sketch. But I do wonder if that girl would somehow recognise herself if she one day finds this sketch on the net…

Complicated motifs in that town really… much stuff going on…. I did my best

At some point when I was drawing heard a young couple discussing not far from me. The guy said:

“When one sees St. Jean de Luz on a postcard, one thinks it is a beautiful Harbour. But in fact, it hasn’t got anything special!”

“Not, really no! But they always find a way to make look places attractive on postcards… a special point of view, a special light… but really, it is not nice here!” answered the wife.

I was shocked, asking myself what more these people wanted?  They must be really spoiled in life and live normally in a magical environment… well, their voices sounded very posh, this is already a sign. Anyway, I hated to hear them say that. I bet they wondered what I could find to sketch in that ugly harbour…

On the following sketch, in the lower right hand corner,  you can see the boat with which we had a trip to Spain. A nice two hours trip, as always I enjoyed very much to be at sea.. I love boats, any kind of boats, they make me feel extremely free…

Please don’t try to understand  the boat design, the sketch is totally wrong, half on purpose…

These artworks are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

On The Beach of The Milady in Biarritz

I have done many more sketches of the town and the harbour of Biarritz, similar to the ones I have shown you in my previous posts. If you really want to see them, I’m sure you will find them somewhere on the net. We spent the last day in Biarritz not in the town though, I wanted to try to sketch the beach close to the motorhome service area, I think it was called The Milady Beach,  something like that. But in French of course… one shouldn’t ask too much English from the French , a good enough effort to give the Beach an English name!

Now, I don’t find it very easy to sketch a beach and a sea with a pen, there’s not much stuff happening with regard to interesting structures and elements, meaning not really many lines… painting a beach and the sea, with water colour /oil etc. is certainly much easier than to sketch them in ink lines… but I can’t be bothered to bring and install all the materials which are necessary to make some water colours/oils outside. I did it in the past, but I was never happy, too complicated, too much organisation, and most of the time, some wind comes across and blows everything away… this certainly was the case on the beach in Biarritz! But well, I like the challenge of sketching everything with an ink pen, and anyway, I fancied doing it, just fancying sitting there and drawing. Sitting outside by such lovely weather and sketching a wonderful landscape is a great experience, and sincerely, I don’t really care about the result, as long as I enjoy the process. And I did!

For my first motif I sat down on the steps going down to the beach… or, from another point of view, up to that little house, which is the bar of the  local surfing school. While I was sitting there, the surfers went  up and down all the time, and my God, I was envying them so much! In the past (I am speaking about 30 years ago unfortunately    ) I learnt windsurfing in Congo (Africa), and practised it a little bit more in Spain. I simply loved it. So much so that later on I even bought a wind surfboard in Germany, but as life dictates, I never came to use it, and it is even there somewhere, stored at the home of some acquaintances from which I have even forgotten the name! Anyway, wave surf is something which looks terribly exciting too!

By the following sketch, I was above all fascinated by the green jetty…  As for the people, I had to be very quick and I doubt that any of them would recognise themselves… the dog should,though! 

At least there were stones everywhere, this gave me the chance of drawing some lines… although I must admit that I don’t take it very seriously with the stones – meaning I get very bored very fast and most of the lines I draw are invented! Shame on me, I know, as stones in fact have interesting structures… it might be the colour which bores me.. although again, looking good enough, stones can have wonderful colours… whatever, I am a “rough sketcher”, as one of my visitors commented, and as such, I am entitled to not give a toss about what I do!

In the following sketch, the colours are invented, of course… and I was so lucky that the ‘Milady’ just crossed the wooden path.. yes, she had just had her hair cut! On the top of the hill, by the way, is -I think – the Ilbarritz castle, about which Kevin has written an essay in Cafe Crem. So, if you are interested in history, don’t miss it. There is there too a photo of the castle, so you can judge for yourself how rough my sketching is…

And finally my last sketch of Biarritz, before we head off the next day towards Saint-Jean-de-Luz… These few there were heaven for me, much stuff to draw, lovely weather, good food, and, more important than anything, a wonderful man by my side, Kev Moore, always ready to do his best so that I get everything I need to be happy and to accompany me to the exact spots where I need to be for artistic inspiration … and you know what? The truth is, all these sketches wouldn’t exist without him…

Not measuring Biarritz

We loved the first day in Biarritz and there was so much stuff for me to sketch there, that we decided to stay longer. The next day was a Sunday, and the sun was shining brighter than ever… needless to say, the town was full of people! Not the ideal environment for me to work, as you will see…

This time I decided to stay in the little harbour, an amazing architecture of stone walls, boats, houses, castles and even cathedrals, so intertwined  that everything seems to be everywhere at the same time. A great painting subject, complicated though…

By the following sketch, while I was drawing, I was imagining a whole story in which boats took on a life of their own and were marching into the town to take control of the humans… what a silly story! 

After some sketches there, I decided to go somewhere else. On my way I was accosted by two guys, who were sitting there all the time, not very far away, watching  me.

“I love people who draw!, the younger one said!

My normal way of reacting to people when I am out sketching is to say thanks, to give a big smile and to run away: the last thing I want is to get involved in a conversation, not about art and even less about myself. But this guy was somehow so cute in the choice of his words, that I decided to stop by, not sure though if it was not the beginning of a refined flirting process. French guys  are good at that, at least they think they are…

He then wanted to see my sketches. I hesitated -I hate to show my work in the street- but again, he knew how to ask and I showed him the above sketches. In their raw state though, that is only as a pen drawing, without the water colours which I always add later on.

“Don’t tell me that you do all that directly on the paper with an ink pen?”

Well, yes I do  sketch directly with an ink pen. I never did it differently, and never really thought about it, I guess sketching is such a spontaneous thing to me, that I don’t even envisage the possibility of erasing… in fact, I would hate it!

The guy was really amazed, and he looked at me as if I was the seventh wonder of the world. But again, this belongs to the French mens flirting tactic! Then he started asking me a lot of personal questions, and I knew the time had come to leave. To keep him happy, though, I gave him a leaflet from my gallery, and went away.

I found another great place, far from curious looks, but really close to where the two guys sat, only that they couldn’t see me. I heard them discussing the leaflet

:Oh look, these are trees… but somehow they look like womens bodies… woah!”

They were obviously looking at one of my Fantascapes,, I smiled within myself.

But the peace didn’t last long. I suddenly heard a voice behind me saying

“You should take your measurements!”

Well, yes perhaps I should, above all when what I am trying to draw is so huge and complicated, but I don’t, and I even hate it! With a smile I told the guy that it was not my style, that I love freedom, that taking measurements kills the spontaneity of my art, etc. In fact I was quite angry with myself for having reacted and again interrupted my work, above all as he kept repeating:

“Yes, I understand.. but still, you should take your measurements!”

I started feeling  incredibly upset. The fact is too that I had just started a new sketch, that there was hardly any line on my paper, that it was the worst moment to interrupt me, and certainly not in telling me about the necessity of taking measurements. The first lines I put on the paper always decide what follows, if the sketch will be good or not.

I tried to keep patient, but after a while I couldn’t take it anymore, and my smile vanished. The guy then said:

“Ok then… you draw very well though… have a nice day!”

And he left. If I am not wrong, he was one of the painters who were selling their stuff outside in the harbour. Well, I don’t want to sound harsh, but I prefer not to take my measurements and paint how I do than to paint as he does…

A question of taste…

and of measurement I guess!

Here is the famous unmeasured piece… I saved what I could!

Miss Ponte de Lima 2010

Houses in Ponte de Lima – Sketch by Miki, 2008

The other day, looking at the referrers to Cafe Crem, Kevin wondered about following URL

http://pontedelima.com/

Well, he wondered because “Ponte de Lima” is a little town in the north of Portugal where we spent a lovely day 2 years ago. He followed the link and suddenly I heard him bursting into laughter.

“What is it?” I asked. He just pointed at  his screen, continuing to laugh like the mad Englishman he is.

Indeed…

What I saw gave good reason to laugh

This URL is a site about Ponte de Lima, and in the home page, there is a slide show, and on one of the slides, it’s me, standing there with my bicycle. And more: this same image is used as the background for the whole site… and it is a damned big site!

Kevin of course finds it incredibly funny, because he knows how much I hate to get photographed. And thinking that a site chose a photo of me and puts it all over the place, yes, I admit it, this is very hilarious.

“If somebody from there would have asked you to pose for one minute with your bike for an advertising photo, you would have told them to go to hell and ridden away as fast as you could!”

says Kevin… and he is so right.

Here is the photo

Many people would be outraged to find their photo in such a public, official site, without having been asked for permission before. Well, surprisingly, you may think given my aversion to being photographed, I don’t care.As long as I don’t look monstrous on it… and in this case, the great thing is that one can hardly sees my face  . In fact, the photo is a great advert for United Colors of Benetton, as the little photo bag on my shoulder is one of theirs! Have THEY perhaps paid the site to put this photo there?

The painting above is available directly online as Giclee prints in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widgets below to access my FAA store

And more generally you can see all this stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”

 

Bia Bia Biarritz, Biarritz!

Don’t ask why exactly that silly title! Somehow it came to my mind, it is a reference to a song which my father and English tourists sang in the middle of the night when they were partying together, about 50 years ago, in Benidorm?-Spain. The song was

Pia Pia Piano, Piano….

They were standing on cars singing at their top of their voices… and when they got too hot, they ran naked into the Mediterranean sea, having a bath under the well-known Benidorm moon… Ah, my father could be much fun at that time! Spain also was a much better place, where one dreamed to spend the rest of one’s life..  but this is another story for another time, perhaps!

I had been in Biarritz before, but a long time ago and just for a short visit, I hardly remember anything. As we we went with the bikes into the town, I was so glad to see that there were many subjects for me to sketch. Not easy, though, complicated natural and artificial constructions, castles, rock formations, walls… complicated but so charming that I had to draw them. I am not pretending to go for any architectural accuracy here, as always, my sketches are just an impression, driven by my fantasy and my inability to stay long by the subject. My nightmare is often that somebody comes up in the net and shouts at me with some comments like:

There were 10 windows and not 8!

The roof was red and not blue!

The flowers were tulips and not roses!

and so on…

Even the number of towers in this little castle could be wrong, but sincerely, I don’t care!

It was not easy to sketch this day, it was a sunny Saturday, the first one after a long period of rain, and the town was  chock-a-block with tourists. They were everywhere, and I really felt uncomfortable. People are funny, they always think they use clever tricks to try to see you sketching without you noticing, or to take a photo of you sketching in the beautiful environment, an interesting subject I suppose. In fact these secret observers are much more disturbing than the direct ones, because you always have to activate all of your inner eyes and ears to try to locate the spies… Not easy to draw French castles under these conditions!

As you can imagine, that special one inspired me again to a Biblescape… but I won’t show you this time! And as you see, the little castle is standing there again… in each drawing with different proportions and numbers of windows, but in fact, quite recognisable I would say… meaning: what the hell with all these numbers! 

In my next post I’ll show you some boats and houses from the delicious little harbour from Biarritz…

As always, if you want to see some photos from the trip in Biarritz and read the clever travel stories written y Kev Moore, go to Cafe Crem.

Bob Marley again and again

Just to announce that I have started a series of artworks about o Marley. i meant to do it along while ago, but I always found something else to do… this time, I thought, this is the good occasion, one from time to time, just to relax from working on my last France travel sketches…

You can see more from Bob Marley on my site “Portraits for Life”.

This painting is available directly online as Giclee print on paper or canvas, and in many different sizes, as well as greeting card. just click on the widget below to go to my shop

 

And more generally you can see all the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”

Paul on the Road to Vieux-Boucau

The other day, I showed you how King Solomon suddenly appeared in the Jardin Massey in Tarbes…

Now it is the turn of Paul, whom I met on the way to Vieux-Boucau… lost his way to Damascus probably! Another example of how, in my brain, an innocent painting of a tree landscape within a camp site evolves into a dramatic Biblescape…

Aqualandes

We had a nice evening in Peyrehorade, but woke up under the rain next morning. This was not exactly what the weather forecast had announced, but well, armed with our perpetual optimism, we drove to  the Atlantic coast, hoping the rain would stop there. What a silly hope, when one knows that it never stops raining there, kind of! And in fact we arrived to Vieux Boucau under a much stronger rain! The mood plummeted considerably inside the Boomobile, we thought a while about driving straight back to our beloved Andalusia, but finally we decided to give France a last chance: we would wait until the next day and see.

!The motorhome service area was good though, providing electricity, next to the local camp site, but there were hardly campers, only  trees, these wonderful long and slim Landes pine trees which always show the direction of the wind. At some point we had a walk to the beach – you can see and read about it in Cafe Crem. I desperately wanted to sketch and paint, but except the pine trees and the rain, there was nothing inspiring for me there. So I decided to try again to paint from fantasy, whatever would come to paper through my fingers and brushes.

I first tried to remember the beach…. somehow there were dunes and sea and fenceposts… for my own pleasure I added the houses and the boat… these type of houses being in fact a memory of the houses I had seen in the Bretagne 3 years ago, when we had picked up the motor home there, which we had bought from Spain through the internet.

The sad truth is that when we walked to the beach, everything was grey… so who knows from where I took these wild colours! Some dreams I suppose…

I also tried some  pine trees, here is one of the paintings inspired by them

And then I forgot the sea and the beach and the pine trees and the rain and I just put colours on the paper. It is always quite scary to start a painting without any idea of what one will do, it is like jumping into a vacuum… I know some people paint only this way. I could do it too. What I find more difficult is to try to paint in all ways, totally free, or based on nature, to be able to change from constraint to freedom. I do believe that this is a great exercise to get a very free painting style, but not that free and wild that nobody knows what it is about. I do believe that we should sometimes go back to nature and look around us… whenever we think how great and creative we are, nature has by far the richest imagination and the most wonderful colours…

Anyway here are the results from that rainy afternoon session in a motorhome parked in a service area in the Landes… I am quite happy with them, I must confess, and, more important than anything: I enjoyed it a lot!

To recompense me for the good work and comfort himself from the hated rain, Kevin organised a food orgy in the Boomobile:  my mother had given us some “magret de canard” (ducks filet, kind of) marinated in I don’t know what with herbs from the Provence, and a bottle of Kevin’s favourite Rose d’Anhou… the magret was orgasmic, I tell you! Not so orgasmic though were the little grease stains all over the couch… the duck had tried to escape the pan and Kevin had a big fight with it while he was cooking  

On The Way to Heaven

We spent only 3  days in Tarbes, after having successfully negotiated the Boomobile through the MOT, which was the main reason for our trip there.  -Although when I say “successfully”, it is only due to the generosity of  the nice guy who performed the tests,  finding out that we had in fact a lot of excess weight, about 400 kilos… I served up my most charming smile and answered:

“It’s because my Dad was sitting inside when you weighed it! “

He let me get away with it… now, my Dad is quite big, but the 400 kilos came mainly from my hundreds of sketching books and painting blocks I keep stored in the Boomobile… and well, hundreds of books for Kevin, and hundreds of DVDs for the evenings… although we have bettered ourselves since last year. Kevin used to take millions of CDs on the road, not being able to live one second without listening to music. Last year, as we came back from our Portugal trip, exasperated with these millions of CDs occupying all chairs and tables in the motorhome, I had offered him an Ipod, and now this lovely little thing has got inside everything his ears take a fancy to, takes up no room, and weighs nothing… a great move for the Boomobile diet and my comfort it was!

Anyway, before we left Tarbes we went shopping, food for the trip and a new saddle for my bike, naughtily increasing our overweight problem by about 100 kilos. I had thought a lot about where we should go, hesitating between The Spanish Galicy, the French Cathar Land and the South French Atlantic coast. The last won the race eventually, mainly because of the weather forecast. What we wanted more than anything was sun: I desperately needed to be able to sketch outside after having spent 2 months in the USA earlier this year without any possibility of doing it, and Kevin needed some tan 

So, on the 21st of April, about midday, we left Tarbes in direction of the Landes. The sun was shining, it was simply wonderful to drive through the countryside, with the snow covered Pyrenees to the left. We had a lovely break somewhere on the way, I can’t remember the name of the village… I did a sketch there, fascinated by the bright yellow fields. I don’t remember if the pink house was there too, but I guess there was some kind of house there, and I painted it pink because I love yellow and pink together…

Our aim for that night was Vieux-Boucau, by the coast, in the Landes. No special reason why that place in particular, I had never been there before, it just seemed strategically well-placed and to have a good place to park the Boomobile, providing electricity. But on the way to that town, we drove through a little town called “Peyrehorade”, it looked wonderful in the late afternoon light by the river, and we decided to spend the night there. If you want to read about our electrifying adventures there and see some photos, read Kevin’s report in Cafe Crem.

Me, I spent some time sketching, certainly not with the results I would have loved. But well, sketching is sketching, it is a very spontaneous activity, not very forgiving.

And as always, I am quite sure that the place is not very recognisable for the natives… who cares! It was fun to sit by the river and sketch in the sun, Kevin reading not too far away from me… HEAVEN!

I was fascinated by a series of trees which really looked like persons having joined together to protect the entrance of the town. Again, I couldn’t help but to personify the trees… I think I need a brain washing soon!

King Solomon in The Jardin Massey

This is a watercolour painting of the Jardin Massey, in Tarbes (France, Hautes Pyrenees, my home town). If you want to know some facts about that garden, just go to Cafe Crem and read Kevin’s post “Over the Hills and far away…”. Kevin loves history, and me, it bores me to death! I guess I was introduced quite painfully to history, in the school I had to learn dates and facts by heart, without being taught why it was so and my brain works in a way that it can only enjoy and remember things which give sense, kind of…

As I said, this is supposed to be a painting of that famous garden. You will see some photos of it in Kevin’s post, and you will perhaps wonder what my painting has to do with it. well, the trees were really there, all of them, the path too, and even the red bush. There were some kind of houses there too, but certainly not white and of that shape. This house looks much more like some Spanish house to me. as always, I couldn’t stay by what I saw, my fantasy went through with me, and the result has, I suppose, nothing to so with the Jardin Massey.

But it gets even worse: as I looked at the painting when I was back home, some days ago, I saw something strange: King Solomon ruling about the two prostitutes each pretending that the baby was theirs. A perfect theme for my new series “The Biblescapes”. Really, sometimes I wonder how my brain works. Judge for yourself what it did out of this innocent landscape painting:

Anyway, this is how King Solomon suddenly appeared in the Jardin Massey. I guess he was as surprised as myself, and even our history master Kev Moore is thinking of adding this new fact in Wikipedia…