MAY THE ART BE WITH YOU

 

MAY THE ART BE WITH YOU

May has been a good month to get the pens and paints out and get myself out a little more with my tools in hand and my camp chair in my backpack. El Cortes Ingleses is an enormous department store. We walked the seven floors to see the usual department store goods (including the Lego play area with soft couches for exhausted parents, captured in the act above). As if that wasn't enough, there were the five more floors below grade with a supermercado, hardware, pet store, and much much more. Wow!

I have managed to connect with Porto Urban Sketchers for a few meetups so far. They are a very welcoming and friendly group, language barrier notwithstanding. Last meetup was something of a doubleheader. In the morning we visited Quinta dos Conjegos, an old estate with extensive grounds and gardens in Maia, a suburb about forty minutes north of Porto. I found a pear tree (bush), next to a fountain and pool, with early pears just emerging. After a group lunch, we made our way over to Maia Forum for "Maia BD" (Festival Internacional de Banda Desenhada), an annual celebration of the art of graphic novels, focusing on European and Portuguese artists, that comes with cosplay. A portion of the event enabled us to sit in an auditorium while several players were on stage modelling while we drew.

Back at the beginning of the month, on a cold afternoon, we crossed the Duoro River to Gaia with friends who were in town to sample Port wines, tour wineries and see what there was to see. Our wandering took us past an abandoned building that looked unusual, where I took some pictures. Jack and I got to talking about different ways one might present that building which got me to thinking about different ways to paint or draw the scene. So here we go:

#1 The first image is a simplified representation of what was there. I did not want to be realistic, so it is a bit stylized.

#2 This image tries to be looser and convey the deterioration of the structure and the space and house behind it.

#3 This image is a lot looser, more abstract. I tried to emphasize the contrast between the dark and light. This is definitely baby steps toward looser and more abstract.

#4 I thought black and white would go a long way toward conveying the deterioration, and I think I was right. The line work is subdued, and being in black and white the lines tend to get lost in the composition. It also focuses on the house in the back as well as the debris in the foreground.

#5 Here I wanted to focus on the line work, making the wash secondary, and zoom in to the structure collapsing. It shows the front structure and ignores the house in the back.

#6 At Stacey's suggestion, I added the last piece projecting what it could be in the future, bringing the property back to life. I chose a story book/childrens' book style for its' simplicity, and a dream of what could be.

Stay tuned for more things next month!