Home landscapes

The last summer we left Italy. On the months before I felt the almost compulsive need of drawing our home in Casalecchio, near Bologna. It was somehow a way for fixing it in my mind. Of course I took some photos and made a video, but you know... when you draw, you look and stop and live and –maybe– see the scene. When I take photos I feel I can't see all I want because the camera is between my eye and the scene. It's the camera that works but just taking data.

El Palau de la Musica Catalana

Some weeks ago the Circle Artistic Sant Lluc organized a visit to the Palau de la Musica Catalana in which we were allowed to walk freely on every part of it. This means we could go on stage or near the organ tubes and some other points usually not so accessible.
This auditorium is a masterpiece of Catalan Modernisme by Domènech i Montaner, it seems more a cathedral than a concert hall. Every little corner is full of symbols about music and musicians throughout times and places. While I was drawing I've heard the explanations of the guides for the visitor groups for 6 times (2 in spanish, in 2 catalan, in 2 english). I liked very much that, since Domènech was ideologically quite liberal, there are no private boxes.

I started with a general view which I colored using a tiny watercolor box with just sepia, gold ochre and indigo.

Since I had no room for the gorgeous stained-glass skylight I made a drawing apart for it (and added some liquid watercolor at home).

The next drawings are the 18 muses that decorate the back of the stage.
The color of the background mosaic is always sepia as in the first drawing, but I thought is was boring to make all the 3 drawings on the same color so I used the 3 colors of the palette.

Castellers de Sants

Some weeks ago, with the usual wild bunch (César, Lapin, Sagar, Víctor and Javier de Blas who had stopped for a few days in Barcelona on his long trip throughout the Mediterranean coast), I had the opportunity to attend a couple of the indoor rehearsals of the Castellers de Sants (Sants is a neighborhood of Barcelona). They are one of the most famous collas (teams) of castellers in all Catalonia. This are not my first castells live but in this occasion I could see everything from different high levels and I could appreciate the intricate way they construct the basis, the different figures and roles, and the complex organization and hierarchy of the colla.
At some times I had to stop drawing: seeing l'enxaneta (the 6-8 y.o. child that ends the castell) scaling a human tower till the 9th "floor" is really hypnotizing. I felt as pushing with my eyes to help all that remain standing.






Here are all them building a 9 floor castle.

I'll play the teacher

From may 7 until july 16 and organized by the Circle Sant Lluc, there will be a course entitled "Drawing the city" in which the teachers/professors/instructors or whatever will be Victor Martínez "Swasky" and yours truly.
For 10 weeks we we'll try to tell our (not so) innocent students the secrets and wonders of urban sketching, sketch crawling, sketchbookism and other bad habits.
And draw, most of all we will draw.

Some results here and here's the flickr group.

I love Paris in the springtime...

...but this drawings were made in an unkind february.
I'd bet Cole Porter was not an urban sketcher.