Back to Flamenco

Some years ago, I started a series of Flamenco paintings, most of them in pastel on coloured paper. Unfortunately at that time I was not bothered neither about the internet nor about keeping track of nor taking photos of the paintings I sold, and most of these flamenco paintings are gone for me now

Here is one of the rare ones I still have a photo of

If I remember well, I sold it to a Norwegian woman, and it was meant as a wedding gift for a friend of hers…

Well, these days, in connection with the new project “travelscapers”, I came to think that I should do some new flamenco artworks to present them there…

Well, I didn’t think long and started. In a totally different style, in that new technique I developed for the Fantascapes.2 years ago.

I call this new series “The Flamencoscapes”.. .what else!

It should become a long series, at least I hope I will have the energy to work regularly on it. At the moment I am -like most of the time! -especially fond of representing the movement and the colours, but I want to paint the passion too, the pain, the bitterness., the music…

A Dream Came True….

People who have already been to Spain surely know them: the posters -called “cartel taurino” – announcing bullfight events, like the following ones

In the past, I don’t know if it is still “in”, but when tourists came to Spain they used to buy these posters, but after putting their name on the list of the bullfighters on the poster. I never did that myself, but well, it is quite a funny idea in fact…

Anyway, since I have started painting bullfight motifs, I have always dreamed that one day some corridas organising company contacts me, asking if they could use my paintings on their posters,

Well, my dream came true: Two days  ago, a company called Ferrodex contacted me , asking for my paintings, their aim being to give the fiesta a more artistic touch by the way of the posters. Ferrodex is a national Spanish company, organising all kind of events related to bull and bullfight across the whole of Spain. They even have two of their own fincas, rearing bulls and selling them for bullfight…

We might come to an agreement…

And when we do, I will also have my name on the posters… but not as a matador, as an artist!

Travelscapers – Around The World in Arty Days

I don’t know how it is with you, but me, I have so many travel plans and dreams in my head that 10 lives would not be enough to fulfil them! My dreams have always been for example, to go to Siberia, China, India, Peru, The Moon… I will certainly do what I can to realise some of them, but for many obvious reasons, not all will be possible. But when one can’t really travel, there is a way to visit places without spending too much money or time, and it is ART. I do love to look at beautiful photos from far away countries, and of course, even more than photos, I adore  paintings featuring the beauty of all the places and people in our world.

This is why, Adrian Durham and me have started a new project, called Travelscapers. Our aim is to exhibit on our platform as many paintings from around the world (scapes, towns,  nature, people, folklore) as possible, the challenge being to gradually cover the globe with paintings, according to the motto:

“”Around the world in Arty days”

Travelscapers.com is a site for artists and art lovers, run by artists. I would love to invite painters from around the world to join us. Well, when I say “invite”, it is not quite true.Unfortunately to run such a site costs money, and much time. We can offer our time, but for the rest we will have to charge a fee of 10 $ per year to be a member of travelscapers,

But think about it: together we are much stronger. The chance that our works get found and purchased on the net is much higher on big artists community sites than on private artists sites. We will do all the necessary work to get as much traffic as possible there. And anyway, I know from my own experience that there is an incredible amount of people around the world who search for paintings from the places where they live, where they have been on holiday, or from where they dream of. Travelscapers will become THE place where they will go, as soon as we have a very representative amount of paintings from around the world.

If you want to join us in travelscapers.com, exhibiting your paintings and travel sketches of places there, leave a comment here, or contact me at

miki@goodaboom.com

or simply go to travelscapers and register!

Prohibido forbidden!

I had meant to be a little bit quicker with posting my last trip sketches from Agua Amarga, but well, it is the Football World Cup and I have to take much time to support my teams (1. England   2.France   3.Germany  4. South Africa) against the rest of the world…

Today I will dedicate this post to the “Prohibido” (means “Forbidden” in Spanish) in Agua Amarga, and more generally in Spain.

As we arrived in Agua Amarga, we thought we would have to go away again , as all the streets leading from the main road to the village and the beach were forbidden to motor homes. We had been there 2 years ago, and nothing was forbidden then, it was quite a shock to us! But well, finally, at the end of the village, there was a way leading to the beach from which the motor homes were not banned… until a certain point of course, as the sketch shows! Fair enough I must admit, as the ‘motorhome nation’ tend to invade all the beautiful places, leaving no room and views for anybody else!…

When I first came to Spain, it was in 1958 I think, it was still – and for a long time to come – Franco’s dictatorship. Franco’s governance went through various phases, although the most common ideological features present throughout included a strong sense of Spanish nationalism and protection of the country’s territorial integrity, Catholicism, anti-communism, anti-masonry and traditional values. Public life was tough for tourists during these times… I remember for example a friend of my brother, who had to spend a night in jail with his English bird because they had kissed publicly on the beach… also, if I remember well, bikinis were forbidden… stuff like that!

Anyway, Franco died in 1975 and after his death Spain gradually began its transition to democracy, Perhaps it is a normal reaction for a country who has been under a dictatorship for 40 years, but this democracy seemed to have evolved into a Paradise of Freedom: everything seemed to be allowed and nobody was too bothered about following any rules anyway!

And this of course, according to the laws of human nature, has lead to many abuses…

So many abuses that nowadays Spain seems to have fallen into the opposite extreme: laws and prohibitions everywhere.

As I saw this sign by the beach in Agua Amarga, I was wondering how long it would last until everything and everybody will be banned from the beach… of course, for now, all these signs have their rightness, but what worries me is the tendency. We really see from year to year more laws, more prohibitions, more complications in all kinds of ones daily involvement, sometimes really ridiculous… I juts wonder where this will stop or end, and I do get worried: I have now officially elected Spain as my land of residency, have just finished the paper work, and I don’t want to live in a place where I am not allowed to kiss my Kevin outside!

On this sign I found very funny that the pictured dog was bigger than most of the dogs living or visiting the place!!!

Anyway, if the Spaniards don’t stop the “prohibido” campaign soon, I will have to take action. I might be a Spanish resident now, but I still have my French blood inside and I will start a Revolution and go all over the country with a giant  sign on which is written

” “Prohibido” prohibido! “

PS: you might have noticed that Spain is not in the list of “my” football teams… well, the reason has a lot to do with what I write in this post!

Through the Cabo de Gata-Nijar

Last Monday, the 7th of June 2010, we went for a short trip to “Agua Amarga”,  a little village by the sea about 50 kilometres south of here, planning to be back for the football World Cup.

We have decided to regularly make short trips with the motor home, just to recharge the batteries a little bit and to ‘reset the system’. If there is something I don’t really like in usual everyday life, it is the routine which takes over as soon as one is home again. We have travelled a lot this year, in fact we were more out than in, but always when we come back, it doesn’t take even one day before the routine is comfortably installed in our lives. To be honest, we have also a great life at home, the routine is sweet, full of fun and love, but routine is routine, and I regularly need to break it!

So here we are, Monday afternoon on our way to Agua Amarga-which by the way, means “Bitter Water”. We had been there 2 years ago, but only for one hour,  I had liked it and seemed to remember there were good motifs for me to sketch.

On the way there we stopped at a place where one has a fantastic view of the Cabo de Gata-Nijar

This place is huge, the view is very impressive, and it is really not easy  to reflect in a sketch the majesty of the scenery. Working directly on the paper with an ink pen, I have no chance to erase anything, and I always feel quite scared when I start a sketch involving such an extended place, in width and height! . But well, I did it, and Kevin says:

“It’s exactly it!”

Kevin is always sooooooooooooooooo kind!

One of these typical ruins one finds everywhere in Spain… this one was just a wall with a door in it, nothing more! And cactus and stones all around, very Spanish too!

On the top of the hill to the left you can see one of these picturesque watchtowers  ringing the coast of Spain from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. For centuries they gave warning of attacks by the Barbary Pirates from North Africa. At least I think it is one of them!

And concerning the little white buildings, please don’t come to me and say

“they don’t really look like that!”

because to me they do look like that. In reality there might me more or less of them, and with slightly different shapes, but the impression is this:

little white buildings tumbling down the hill!!

Molina de Aragon

I know I am late, I mean, I am writing right now about a trip which was 5 weeks ago, it is not exactly what a blog is meant to do, but well, It is not always easy to keep up ‘live’, above all when I haven’t got access to the internet when we travel in wild places… I just hope that my post won’t taste too much like cold coffee!

We made “Molina de Aragon” the last stop of the trip which had brought us from Turre, in Spain (Provincia de Almeria) through the Pyrenees to Tarbes, Peyrehorade, Vieux -Boucau, Biarritz , Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Autol. If you browse though this site, you will find some of the sketches I did in all these places.

We had been in Molina de Aragon 2 years ago, also on our way back from the Pyrenees. There is a big fort there, and a great place to park the motorhome for the night, in front of the fort. So we decided to stop there, I could do some sketches of the fort, and then we would head back home the next day.

Well, I did some sketches, but it was not easy. Really, not easy to squeeze into a sketch block  these gigantic Spanish forts, and, on top of it, some rain was falling, I had to be quick..

the sky colours on my sketches are certainly not  a reflection of the true ones… but I can hardly force myself to paint some black sky at day time… in fact the darker the real sky is, the more coloured my painted skies become… I always had a certain sense of contradictions!

I wanted to do some more sketching the next day, before we went home, but as we awoke we had a big surprise:

IT WAS SNOWING!

Now, look, it was the 3rd of May , in Spain, not even in the North or  on top of a mountain… I am starting believing that the weather has really gone mad…

One Wonderful Day in Arnedillo in La Rioja

As I said in my previous post, we went directly from Saint-Jean-de Luz in France to La Rioja in Spain, not so much for the wine as for the attractive landscapes. After the day in Autol, we drove further and soon were passing through a very beautiful village called “Arnedillo”, which even  provided parking places for motorhomes,  still a quite rare facility in Spain. We were wandering around a lot, but with time passing by we noticed a lot of traffic in and through this little town, and found out that it was a spa town, and that many people came here to spend the weekend biking and wandering. and fishing and visiting dinosaur caves. And certainly drinking wine too!

From the motorhome parking we had this great view

Well, I spent quite a time outside there sketching, there were really plenty of very attractive motifs.

By the way, the person in red crossing the bridge was an old lady there, I am sure she was a local celebrity, she seemed to spend the whole day walking around in her vibrant red coat with a tiny dog on the lead, and speaking to everybody she met on her way! This is why she appears on quite a few of my sketches that day, she was everywhere!

But once again, I had not enough time to do all the work I wanted to do, and I guess I will have to go back there one day. We had a long walk around the town, even a long bicycle ride to the next little town. I made many photos , but knowing that back home, I wouldn’t have the heart to paint the places from photos. Once you have got used to sketching on site, I find it very difficult to sketch or paint from photos, it simply paralyses my fantasy and my freedom of interpretation. So all together I just had time to do 7 sketches, the next one being the last one, quite late in the afternoon in fact, and it began to rain again…

We spent the rest of the evening in the motorhome,in the company of a great bottle of Rioja we had bought at the local shop, and some delicious pasta cooked by Chef Kev…

Back in Spain

After our bike trip to Socoa, we planned to leave Saint-Jean-de-Luz the next day, and drive towards Spain along the coast. Unfortunately the weather was awful the next morning, and we decided to head back directly to Spain. After a big shopping trip buying French products in one of those enormous Carrefour supermarkets, we drove along a wonderful road through the Low Pyrenees into Spain.

Since I was a child, the feeling I  have when I cross the border from France to Spain is always the same: a deep sense of relief of coming back HOME!

Although I was born in France, and spent more than half of my life in Germany, Spain always felt like “home” to me, which is why, one day, I finally decided to move here…

Anyway, soon after the border the rain stopped and the sun appeared. We had decided to spend 2 or 3 days in la Rioja, where we had been already 2 years ago, and which I had found very attractive … not for the wine (although I do like it!) but for its landscapes, especially its red mountains. In the late afternoon we found an extraordinary little town in the region, called “Autol” and decided to stop there for the night, and the next day perhaps

After a quick coffee in the motorhome, I ran outside to sketch…

Unfortunately, after a short while,  drops of rain started to fall on my sketching pad… the fact is that the sky had suddenly become quite black and menacing…  I just had time to sketch the amazing “El Picuezo y La Picueza”, 2 gigantic stones (42 metres and 28 metres) standing in the middle of the town square… this sketch was REALLY fast, a race against the coming storm!

I felt very frustrated, there were so many motifs in that little town, it hurt me in the soul to have to stop. I comforted myself with the hope that the next day would be better, but as we awoke next morning, it was even worse. We drove away, sad… also because we had seen that they were running the bulls in the streets of a neighbouring village, and we would have loved to attend the party!!!!

With the bike to Socoa

On the 29th of April, in the afternoon, we decided to have a ride with the bikes along the coast, from Saint Jean-de-Luz to Socoa and back. The day before we had seen this part of the coast from the seaside, as we were on a boat trip leading us to the Spanish border.

Great little town this Socoa, with its fort and mountains and  its surfing/sailing school…

Once again, like some days before in Biarritz with the wave surfers, I would have loved to have a go myself on these boards. And I thought, what a great childhood these children have… but then I remembered, that in the French Pays Basque it is well know for raining all the time! It certainly looks different under the rain there… and it’s perhaps not so much fun to ride the waves when the sea is grey and bad… although I always loved to swim in the sea under the rain…

Part of the fort… certainly not very accurate , like always… just an impression!

This place was in fact great to sketch, but it was late afternoon, I was tired. I had already done some sketches in the morning in the harbour of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and I couldn’t any more. It is always frustrating though to leave a place with the feeling that one should have done many more sketches, and one does not know when  if one will ever come back. But well… we had instead a fun bike ride on the jetty, with the sea on both sides of us, it was extremely exciting! And the ice cream in a cafe by the sea was just delicious.

Unfortunately on the way back I caught a little cold… must have driven too fast on my bike!!!