Category: Blitherings

The Not Taken Vacation: Rock of Gibraltar

So . . . we continue at sea, bypassing A Coruna and visiting Lisbon and Porto (oops! I forgot my sketches of Lisbon!) before heading east into the Strait of Gibraltar and heading into the Mediterranean. If I recall my geography and geology, Africa and Europe were once connected here, which is why the famous monkeys of the Rock of Gibraltar exist today. And the Rock of Gibraltar, an English outpost on the tip of southern Spain, dominates the scenery as you sail through. Cruise ships land here, and while we did not, let us pretend we did (since this whole Not Taken Vacation is imaginary) to climb the rock and see the sites.

From the sea, the Rock of Gibraltar rises up, formidable, stately. At times it is shrouded in clouds, other times sharp and crisp against the sky, or softened by moist sea air. Beneath, at the water’s edge, is where people live. Apartments and houses are expensive. Spaniards cross the border daily to work for higher wages but not getting the social benefits such as pensions (my understanding) that they would pay into if working in Spain. English and Spanish are spoken here, and while English is the dominant language, Spanish is not a bad thing to know.

There is a lot of history and a lot to see in Gibraltar. I chose to climb upward to see what I could see. Africa to the south. Coastlines to the east, mountains to the north. And monkeys! Really, Barbary Macaques, which are protected and the unofficial national animal of Gibraltar. They are friendly – but they do bite!

I sat here awhile, visiting with and ignoring the macaques, watching the world below and above, basking in the sun, and thinking up a song of “basking with macaques” which will soon make it to the Top 10 list of rock-n-roll songs.

A Touch of the Fauve in Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre is located in Liguria, in northwest Italy, and comprises 5 villages built into the steep cliffs along the coastline. You can find all sorts of articles, videos, photos about it, and to my thoughts it sounds like an incredible place to see. However, it is not something I will get to do next week, so I thought it would make a good painting study. The idea of living in a house, built on a cliff at the edge of the ocean – I don’t know, but it seems quite a fascinating way to live!

I was more interested in playing with the paint and experiencing how to use the Golden fluid acrylics than I was in making a finished work of art. I am finding I like them when they have dried a bit and become rather sticky but still maintain the consistency of cream. Opacity seems to improve as the paints become more viscous. This stickiness makes for some rather nice ways of creating color combinations – one on another – and texture. This is all play, and play is the best way to learn how to use something, I think. The plan is to continue and come up with an opinion about if I like them – I think I do, sometimes more than other times – as well as just exploring painting with them.

This painting was inspired by a photo taken offshore and looking landward. The houses cling to the cliffs, and if you look closely at the photo, you can see pathways and stairs leading from one area of houses to another. There were more outcroppings of rock in the photo than I have here, and I think it would have been a better painting to have included them. It looks like I have two rock columns madly in love, and having a good smooch! Despite that, I had fun playing with not just the colors, but ways in which to apply the paint – like rubbing it in with a paper towel in addition to a paint brush. Soft and hard brushes also have and impact, as does using a filbert, flat, or round brush. So much to learn . . .

Golden fluid acrylics, a bit of a fauvist or colorist approach, 15×20 paper.

The Not Taken Vacation: Torre de Hercules, A Coruna, Galicia, Spain

I am typing with two hands, ten fingers, no toes! It is so exciting to be able to return to a relatively normal life even though it was extremely difficult for a few days. My arm is nowhere near as strong as it once was – not that it ever was – but at least I am getting some skills back. Two-fingered typing was getting efficient, but two-handed is much better.

So, where are we today on my untaken vacation? We have sailed from Liverpool south, down the coast of France, perhaps watching the coast as we cruise past Normandy and down through the Bay of Biscay – or further out to sea to meet up with the western bit of the Iberian Peninsula as we head to A Coruna. But! Alas! We could not make it into port in A Coruna – probably the same sucky weather that prevented our mooring in Ireland.

What do we miss? An old city. What do we see as we bypass this port? The one thing that struck me as most-likely-to-be-seen was the lighthouse known as the Tower of Hercules – formerly Farum Brigantium. A bit of research shows a genuinely amazing bit of history as it is the oldest known extant lighthouse, one dating from the 2nd century AD (CE if you want!), and possibly erected by a Roman emperor. For me, one who lives in a SoCal suburb, such history is hard to consider, much less a building of such age.

Read the blurb on Wikipedia – when I looked it up, the Torre de Hercules was astonishing. My humble sketch does not do it justice.