Finally here is my last blog post about the Portugal trip with the 4 paintings I did on the last day. It took me so long to finally post them all that either you had completely forgotten about it (quite likely), or instead the intense suspense of this long wait was killing you! (who knows) ;-) Well, no more waiting, here they are.
On the last day, we all stayed in the beautiful garden and surroundings of the property as there was lots of beautiful subjects to chose from and we didn't want to waste any time travelling to various painting spots. In the morning, Tim, David P., Karl and I walked to the edge of the cliff to capture the warm colours of the morning light.
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| In progress |
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| Towards the end |
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| Tim King |
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| David Pilgrim |
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| David Pilgrim and Karl Terry |
Walking back home through the garden, I spotted an interesting tree with light piercing through the leaves. I couldn't resist, I had to give it a try. Lunch will have to wait!
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| After 30 minutes |
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| Towards the end |
Painting gardens is one of my favourite thing so I was having the best time ever. Just after lunch I spotted this beautiful arch with views over the sea. I kept it very loose, I just wanted to capture the essence of it without getting lost in details.
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| Quick drawing |
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| Blocking the colours in |
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| Adding more contrast |
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| Towards the end |
Finally, we only had time for a last painting before heading back to the airport. I was shown this beautiful view with olive trees that some of the guys painted in the morning so I couldn't resist having a go myself. The place was beautiful and it was so peaceful, I could have stayed there for hours, but it was time to catch our flight!
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| At the start |
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| After an hour or so |
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| Towards the end |
In case you wonder how we managed to transport wet paintings, well, during the trip I used a wet panels carrier box. Mine was kindly made by Tim King who ingenuously built it with polystyrene (and not wood like many on the market) so it is truly lightweight. And for the plane, most of us used the ingenious matchsticks technique: stacking the paintings up two by two with same sizes and separating them on the edges with matchsticks (whose heads have been cut off) glued at the back, to leave a gap, then stacking the whole pile together and wrapping it tightly with tape. That can be then transported in a hand luggage.
I have wonderful memories from this trip and had so much fun painting so intensely after such a long baby break.
A few group pictures from the trip:
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From left to right: Valérie Pirlot, Haidee Jo Summers, Mo Teeuw, John Stillman, Karl Terry,
Andrew Roberts, David Pilgrim, David Bachmann, Tim King, Tony Dakin, Michael Richardson |
All my Portugal paintings are available on my website here:
I now have some new Bath paintings to post and some news to share so I will do that in my next post as soon as I get the chance.
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