Trip to Morocco 03

Moroccan Market 04 - by Miki

I won’t have time to write many words today, we are about to hit the road again and I must pack.

So, here are some more scenes of our wanderings through the Moroccan markets. The donkeys are the main “vehicles” there, they are chiefly the ones which carry the sellers, the buyers and the goods to the markets, and back. Sometimes the poor things must go dozens of miles to reach the market, fully loaded with tons of people and stuff. They are gone the whole day, leaving at dawn and returning in the night. And this, just to make a few dinars. This is a life one can hardly imagine…

Moroccan Market 05 - by Miki

And of course, as with cars and trucks, when the donkeys are unloaded, they need to get out of the way, so in these markets there is donkeys parking… the first time we saw one, we thought all these donkeys were for sale, but we were soon told otherwise!

Moroccan Market 06 - by Miki

So, as I said, we are about to leave. Destination: Algarve, Portugal. First Kevin will rock for the BMW German bikers, and after the gig, we will go. This is surely the best way to get his adrenaline down after the gig! But don’t think twice, this is not a pleasure trip. This is serious stuff. Two of our (Derby County) football Academy lads, Mason Bennett and Will Hughes have been named in the England Under-17 squad for the Algarve Tournament in the first week of February. England will face Portugal on February 2, Holland on February 4 and France two days later. Being huge fans of these two boys and expecting a great deal from them (no pressure of course    ) we have decided to go and support them live, attending all three games. Last time I went to a football match, as far as I can remember, was about 30 years ago,when I lived in Goettingen, Germany, where I saw my adopted home team team playing against Schalke.

Needless to say I am quite excited about this trip!

I hope I will find some time to sketch between the games, as Portugal is one of my favourite sketching motifs! But my hands will be probably shaking from fear and excitement, so involved I have become in Derby football.  And these two lads, they are our future (again: no pressure!)

But back to business, even if it is not as serious as footie, by far! (The legendary Liverpool Manager Bill Shankly was famously quoted as saying “Football is not a matter of life and death – it is far more important than that”!) The paintings above are available directly online as Giclee print 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 the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”. Just click -gently!- on my face.

Trip to Morocco 02

Moroccan Market 01 - by Miki

As promised in my last post “Trip to Morocco 01″, I have created some more watercolour paintings from Morocco, focussing on the Moroccan markets. The markets are I think what most amazed me there, probably even more than the tourist attractions such as the Medinas of Marrakesh and Essaouira.

In the painting above, there is a woman sitting by the side of the steps, one of the rare women I saw in these markets. But I was told by a local that the women do go to the markets, just very early in the morning, while we are still sleeping, dreaming of our breakfast… They know exactly what they want and  do their shopping very quickly. For the men, however, it seems to be more of a social event . I also got the impression that the men buy and sell all kinds of tat, just for the sake of it! It reminded me of my boyfriends and brothers when they were small, they just spent their time swapping whatever they had!

Like these guys in the painting below… no idea what that lively old man eagerly stepping across on the white board was expecting to buy from the seller sat on the ground… I personally saw only little bits of wood there!

Moroccan Market 02 - by Miki

I’m wondering also what the two guys were looking so fascinated by in the little bucket… some worms probably (!) … but I did not dare to go nearer to check… I just took a photo and escaped before I got shouted at!

Moroccan Market 03 - by Miki

The Moroccan Market 03 is in fact part of my series “My dear old people”, and is called (“Together Old in Morocco 01″), featuring old people from around the world, in their daily life, lonely or together. A series very dear to my heart, as I have a very sweet spot for all people. Here is another one

Together Old in Morocco 02 - by Miki

These two old guys looked so sweet!!!!! Portraits in watercolour is not so easy, and I have hardly painted any in my life, being more used to portraying in pastel and coloured pencils.  But well, it will do for now. It would be worth a real portrait though, focussing on the faces… one day maybe! As we say in Spain “Manana!”, meaning “probably never!”

So, enough with Moroccan markets for today, it’s time to go home and eat now! 

These paintings are  available directly online as Giclee print 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 the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”. Just click -gently!- on my face.

Trip to Morocco 01

Old and Lonely in Morocco 01 - by Miki

You know, every year it is the same thing. Christmas comes and one has to spend these special days with the family. Well, I love to spend time with my family, and especially with my parents, but somehow, it is always the same procedure. To be more precise: lots of great food, for hours and hours and hours! But now and then I have a craving for another kind of food, not so much for a feast for the tummy but a feast for my eyes! I am definitely not one of these people who hate Christmas, on the contrary: I love it! As I was a child, Christmas was fantastic, our Papa Noel was doing a great job, and these moments marked me for life. So, this year -well, last year, 2011- we decided to have a very special Christmas, and coming back to celebrate just in time with the parents. We booked a ten day trip to Morocco. I had always wanted to go there, and especially to paint it. But well, I knew that 10 days were not enough, I do need more time and more room and comfort to paint, more than I can get travelling from hotel to hotel in a little rented car. But this trip was a test, I wanted to see if I like Morocco, and if yes, we would come back for a much longer time with our Boomobile (our motorhome, my atelier on wheels). Morocco is just across the Gibraltar channel from us, and we both, and the Boomobile, we always love a go on a ferry!

Anyway, as expected, we loved Morocco! But since we came back one month ago, I was caught in a whirl of other artistic activities connected to my profession (still am!) and I had no time to make some paintings, based on the photos I took there. I just published photos from the trip in my FAA gallery, for me, the lazy way to make art

But now, eventually,  I have taken time again, and grasped my brushes. I guess I won’t do many though, painting from photos is not really my thing!

The first painting is of a lonely old man we saw in Ait-Ourir, not far from Marrakesh. A perfect motif for my series “My dear Old People”, featuring old people from around the world, alone or together. I don’t know if I did him justice, but he was so BEAUTIFUL! I am not sure what he was doing sitting there… simply resting perhaps.. or begging.. well, In Morocco at some point you stop asking yourself what people are doing sitting or laying on the ground, they do it everywhere and at any time of the day and night, probably waiting to see what the Gods will do with them next… Insh’allah!…

Street Scene in Morocco - by Miki

This second painting is a scene from a market in a town where we stopped, on our way from Essaouira to Marrakesh. Certainly one of the most fascinating markets I have ever been too.. and I swear, we were the only tourists there! Which did not make my job as a photographer very easy, as I would have needed to be discreet. But I was one of the rare women there, with a baseball cap on my head instead of a veil, and my companion was an English Rocker with crazy long hair… needless to say we had hordes of children following us all around the market! And the adults looked at us as if we came from Mars!!!! Although really, creatures from Mars don’t look at all like us, at least their skin colour doesn’t, especially not when our skin had a lovely golden tan from the sunny days in Essaouira….  . I am still amazed that I survived that market, having often been spat at in other places in Morocco, even threatened with stones, when I was taking some photos…

These paintings are  available directly online as Giclee print 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 the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”. Just click -gently!- on my face.

My Home on Planet Goodaboom

My Home on Planet Goodaboom - by Miki

Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, or just lack an energy to start a new painting, I revisit some of my immense drawers where hundreds of my past paintings are stocked. These are paintings from a time -not long ago really-  when I was not bothered with any kind of digitalisation and publication.  Painting is fab, but everything involved in the process of having them published on the net is awfully boring and time taking. In fact quite practical that I have these uncreative moments sometimes, at least I can do the boring job meanwhile!

Anyway, some days ago, I found per accident, not in a drawer but in  a big travel folder, loads of watercolours paintings, which I did not even remembered.  They are scenes from around the place where I live with my English Rocker: Planet Goodaboom! On that Planet everything is wild, and passionate, and loving: the Rocker, the skies, the trees, the houses, the sea, the mountains, me, etc…

You can see above our home on Planet Goodaboom. Well, it was like that as we started here and I painted it. It is a little bit bigger now, having gradually added some more rooms to be able to stock all the drawers full of paintings and all the guitars. But it is still an enchanting home, cosy and cut from the rest of the world, a love island, kind of…

A Village on Planet Goodaboom - by Miki

And this is a village nearby, with houses like piles of sugar cubes behind curtains of blossoms…

Well, I hope you love my Planet. If you love it so much that you want to have it on your walls, it is available directly online as Giclee print 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 the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”. Just click -gently!- on my face.

Art and Sports 12 – Roller Skating

Roller Scating 01 - by Miki

Somebody in Italy, after having seen my ice skating paintings, asked me if I could do some artworks featuring artistic roller skating. Quite embarrassing really: to be honest I had no idea that such a sport even exists!

So I went to Youtube and had a look what it is about. Well, it looks to me the same as artistic ice skating, apart that they stay on rollers instead of ice skates and skate on normal ground instead of ice. I hope I am not offending my new Italian friend saying that! Anybody who knows better is very welcome to teach me about other differences! Having been myself  a fanatic roller skater in my childhood, I would be happy to learn more. I was not an artistic skater though, I rather used to skate down steps and steep roads at high speed until I fell… this was my only aim, far from any art!

Anyway I inspired from beautiful scenes I saw on some videos and made 2 first artworks.

Roller Skating 02 - by Miki

These paintings are available directly online as Giclee print 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 the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”. Just click on my face!