Painting, drawing, films, stories, travel and other odds and ends
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This town is a beach town. There isn`t much to do except stroll along the beach, visit the innumerable shops selling clothes or bric a brac or sit, with dozens of black or grey clad men in the cafes- of which there are an amazing quantity- facing the street.
Parts of the town are well kept but large sections are damp and somehow the place makes me feel a bit depressed.
Colour and Black and White
My return to colour makes me realise how much more difficult plein air painting is colour is. The range of feeling produced when you use colour is much more varied, so the final painting speaks with less singularity.
The psychological effect of colourlessness is ore profound. But my process and technique is almost the same as when I`m working in colour.
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El Jadida
This was the third place on our tour.
It has an odd feel about it: unfinished, sometimes quite slummy at other times aspiring with new, very anonymous blocks along the seafront to the east, along with fast food joints and a cinema, all oriented towards car users. The town centre is full of shops selling bric-a-brac, cheap clothing and, not to mince words, rubbish. There are innumerable cafes which seem to be occupied by men in black or brown clothes doing very little except occasionally using their cell phones.
There are restaurants serving piles of fried seafood We ate at one and I`m not sure I`d recommend the experience. The seafood is cooked in batter like British fish and chips but had an appalling greasiness about it. The service was needlessly hurried and brusque.
Mazagan
Mazagan is a walled enclave by the sea, with a church and other Portuguese architecture, and tourist oriented shops and cafes. I enjoyed painting here.
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Winter in Spain and Morocco- more details
We leave in about six weeks, to visit. in sequence:
Marrakesh,
Sidi Ifni
Essaouira (probably)
El Jadida (probably)
Meknes
Tangier
Seville
Valencia
The weather here in Aberdeen has turned sharply colder, and it isn`t easy to go out comfortably. Scotland in Winter is quite inhospitable. Moreover, the fact that I hate Christmas makes spending December in an Islamic country extremely appealing.
Northern Morocco tends to be rainy in the Winter, so we will spend most of our days in the Atlantic coast.
While in Morocco we stay in hotels, in Spain we have rented apartments.
I`m getting boards ready: I`m thinking about continuing in black and white, at least for part of the trip.
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