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…
Infinity + some + 2 