Valencia: street; about Valencia

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 Valencia

Valencia is the most depersonalising big city I`ve spent much time in. I think you could become quite depressed living here.

It`s one of the least inspiring places to make art, despite the sunshine.

There`s a lot of flatness in Valencia. Flatness is very bad for a sense of place. You can feel quite hemmed in by buildings. The seafront is oddly uninspiring and sad and sits some way from the centre.

There are grand and often fantastical structures in the centre: railway stations, a fine food market, and of course the absurd but undoubtedly memorable City of Arts and Sciences building, but most of the city consists of eight storey peach, ream or light yellow blocks going on and on for mile after mile.

Valencia: street, oil on card, 25 x 20 cm - available

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Valencia: flat 2

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Valencia: flat 2, oil on card, 20.1 x 21.6 cm - available

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Valencia: flat 1

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Valencia: flat 1, oil on card, 22.3 x 21.7 cm - available

This flat had some sort of nastiness in it so we were always suffering from faint maladies Sick building syndrome.

Valencia: space between blocks in Patraix

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Valencia: space between blocks in Patraix, oil on card, 22.5 x 21.1 cm - available

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Valencia: blocks in Patraix

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Valencia: blocks in Patraix, oil on card, 21.2 x 21.2 cm - available

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Valencia: highway 2

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Valencia: highway 2,  oil on card,  22 x 19.5 cm - available

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Valencia: highway 1

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Valencia: highway 1,  oil on card, 21.2 x 21.5 cm - available

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A man in Seville

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A man in Seville

 oil on card, 20.7 x 24.9  cm - available

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Valencia: blocks near the railway crossing: La Raïosa

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Valencia, blocks near a railway crossing, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm - available

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Valencia: blocks near the railway crossing La Raïosa

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Valencia: overpass,  blocks, oil on card, 30.5 x 27.5 cm - available

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Seville Parque de María Luisa

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Seville, Parque de María Luisa, perimeter

oil on card, 24.5 x 21.1 cm - available

There are huge trees in this park: astonishing.

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Seville, blocks

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Seville, blocks, oil on card, 24.2 x 28.5 cm - available

An incredibly beautiful city, quite touristy but, perhaps because of the continual bad weather, not oppressively so. 

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Seville, Parque de Maria Luisa

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Seville, Parque de Maria Luisa

oil on card, 23.6 x 27.7 cm - available

Seville

Seville was windy, often stormy in January, so much so that parks were closed.

It`s an amazing city of endless winding lanes and elegant parks and surprises. It`s difficult to drive in, but an ideal place to  walk around in.

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Winter in Spain and Morocco- more details

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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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Winter in Spain and Morocco

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Southern Spain and Morocco

The prospect of several months of Scottish cold and darkness this winter is sufficiently unpleasant to drive me south: to Andalucia or Valencia, thence Morocco, (perhaps back to lovely Sidi Ifni, even?).

I`m thinking of adopting a new format, just for the hell of it. Perhaps something involving very simple line drawings? But the format should issue from the subject, surely? And that subject is not yet known. 

But perhaps one can make some decisions beforehand. I consider: size, weight of paper, doing monotypes, only black and white and colour (but restricted to about 6 different colours).

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Small again...painting pochades

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Primed card

SMALL PAINTINGS

I decided after the Aberdeen Art Fair that I would, again, work small. I had been working on a larger size for impact at the Art Fair, but now I feel that is not really my true metier.

How small, I`m still not sure, but I guess abut A5? I will play around. 

There is something about this format, which is to do with the idea of crapping the impossibly big- a landscape- into the  portable- a postcard  size - which I find immensely appealing. 

Moreover, it`s a format that seems to belong to me, as I`ve worked so often within it.

Thus, I proceed- priming boards and getting carriers sorted, and in a week or two should have some work to show, and perhaps am prepared for Spain and Morocco, the Winter escape.

I feel strongly drawn to revisit the works of artists who set me off on my path as an artist: Odilon Redon, Hammershoi Fatin-Latour: late nineteenth century masters of the strange.

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Andalucia, Parque Natural Sierras Subbéticas; tourism

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Most of Andalucia

I continue with a post-COVID-19 Spanish plan: the Andalucian plan, which involves flying to Malaga, which can be reached with a direct flight from Aberdeen, Scotland where I will first visit.

Previously I had thought of going from Malaga to Seville and then to a national park (Hornachuelos) north west of there.

But  the Parque Natural Sierras Subbéticas is only and hour and a half north of Malaga, halfway to Cordoba, and quite spectacular. I could stay in Zuheros. That would cut out some travel time. 

After a week or so painting there I could continue to Cordoba, explore that, then even Seville, Cadiz, Granada or Jaen. The region is extremely rich culturally.

But I confess that I tend to find a lot of must-see places quite tiring, even disappointing. However galmourous they might be, the heavily mediated experience of tourist sites with and their bossy notices, combined with queues of other tourists and historical explanations, wearies me.

A trip that includes too many of these becomes tiresome. I feel that I am scoring things off a list to silence people who will question me about them on my return

So perhaps just one of these Heritage sites should be included in any week-long period.

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Spain, National parks, Constantina

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Southern Spain

The idea is to go to one of these Spanish National Parks in September (Anjudar, Hornachuelos), thus breaking up a Scottish trip with guaranteed good landscape painting.

Probably the best thing is to fly to Seville or Malaga, find a way to one of these parks and a place to stay, do some painting, then proceed to Aberdeen. Then return to Brazil via Spain. That keeps the flying time down.

Perhaps going to Seville then to Hornachuelos is the easier option.

Constantina seems promising, nestled in the mountains.

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