Funchal

Funchal

(mixed media on board, 30x30 cm)

This is the second of my new wall paintings. It may seem very abstract but is based quite definitely on a crumbling wall I found in Funchal, the capital of Madeira. Still, it was the abstract quality that intrigued me and continues to do so. I love the way the various elements of it seem to float free from the rest and I was at pains not to make it so obviously a wall.

There are two more in this series so far. You may well find that they look more like walls, but it's this one I'll look to for inspiration in the future.

Madeira 2016

Car Park Ventilators, Funchal
(0.5 Micron marker and Pentel Brush Pen 
over two pages of A5 sketchbook)

Little Lighthouse, Camara de Lobos
(0.5 Micron marker and coloured pencils in A5 sketchbook)

Monte Palace Tropical Garden, Funchal
(0.5 Micron marker, Pentel Brush Pen
 and coloured pencils in A5 sketchbook)

In June, Pat and I went to Madeira for a week's holiday. We stayed at the same hotel as last time, Vila Vicencia, because we'd liked it so much and we weren't disappointed this time either. It's a nice little group of buildings clustered round a small pool and far enough out of the centre of Funchal to be quite quiet, but near enough to walk in or take the bus.

I was determined to get more sketching done this time and got off to a good start with the double page spread of the car park ventilators. While I was drawing it, I could hear my Mum in my head saying, "Couldn't you find anything nice to draw?" but I'm resigned to drawing only what interests me and these shapes I found fascinating.

My recent trips out with my Sketch Crawl friends have certainly made me more confident in simply starting a drawing and making it work, but because of this need for "interesting" subject matter, I'm still slow to settle on a subject. Which meant that I only managed to do two more, despite constantly keeping my eyes open for things that would appeal.

There was one new development in this drawing trip: I moved my position several times when making the first two drawings. Not an earth-shattering development, because artists have been doing it for hundreds of years, but new to me.  With the ventilators, I moved my position to get the (quite important) palm tree where I wanted it; with the lighthouse drawing, I moved from drawing the rock outcrop to a position where I could take in the cactus and once again so that I could have a better view of the  lighthouse.

No such moving when I did the drawing of the folly at Monte Palace Tropical Garden, because I was limited to a park bench on another terrace overlooking the folly. A very complicated subject, I found myself getting very confused and perhaps it shows a little in the drawing; however, I think the coloured pencil additions made back at the hotel help to pull it together. Am I wrong? What do you think?

A Missing Piece

Funchal, from Hotel Sirius. 13 August 1992
(Rotring Art Pen in A5 sketchbook)

I knew when I posted the painting of Madeira that I'd missed out a sketchbook study that was an integral part of the painting. And here it is, found in the sketchbook which I've been using as my holiday travel sketchbook since September 1990.

This is where posting from the sketchbooks starts to get complicated. In the time I've been blogging here, I've posted a great deal from this Holidays Sketchbook, so I think it may not be desirable to post the same things again. But maybe I'm wrong. What do you think?