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…

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.