WILD FLOWERS FROM NORTHERN SPAIN

 

We've just returned from our summer trip to the north coast of Spain, a beautiful area with rocky coasts and an abundance of wild flowers.  I picked a bouquet of at least 16 varieties and drew these 4 as they were the most unusual.  The yellow one on the left was on the roadside, growing about 2 to 3 feet tall with these strange flattish pods with a small orange flower coming out of the top.

 

As you can probably see I have only named 2 of them and I would love to learn the names of the other 2 so if anybody can help please let me know in the comments.  The white one here on the right grew about a foot tall in a group on it's own.  All drawn in Museum pencils in my mi-teintes sketchbook.

April 2011: Trip to Spain - Toledo

April 2011: Trip to Spain - Toledo, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

My trip was mostly very urban but an unexpected delay in Toledo provided some extra time and I met a very curious little bug, saw a HUGE dandelion (at least it looked like it's close relative - but approximately 7.5" in diameter) and some wonderfully red poppies!

sketching in a small village

View Ribafrecha sketched in a larger map.
Forget the houses and concentrate on river and mountains: here´s some nature sketches I´ve done in a small village of Spain.

King Philip II chair - Enrique Flores

This typical granitic landscape of Sierra de Madrid is near El Escorial. 

picos de europa

Yet another spread of the sketchbook I carried on a short trip to the north of Spain. This is a quick sketch of Cordiñanes, in Picos de Europa mountains.
A movie of this whole sketchbook can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfs2fh-Nh7w

river gorge

Cuenca is an old spanish city perched between two deep river gorges. Fantastic landscape and architecture and a sketchers heaven if it wasnt for the torrid temperatures! The slopes are full of cypress trees, an unusual sight here in Spain were cypresses are more related to graveyards!
There´s a bigger version of the image here.

Meet the Correspondents--Enrique Flores

I spent five years at Fine Arts university in Madrid plus 2 years doing a Master in Arts Graphic Design at St. Martins, London. I workedin advertising (JWT) for a while before choosing the weird life of the freelance ilustrator. I draw mostly children books that can be seen at my site www.4ojos.com

I also work for El Pais, an important Spanish newspaper. Those images can be seen at my blog www.4ojos.com/blog

I keep day-to-day diaries and I store them in boxes. I guess I must have filled 200 or so. Everytime I go on my travels I make sketches and lately, photos. The first sketchbook I remember was a black and white ruled paper I filled in 1990 in Cuba with biro. None of the sketches takes me more than half an hour and I´m OK when I do about 4-5 drawings a day.

When I´m in ugly places I try to draw just to keep my hand working, no matter of the subject.

I use W&N and Schmincke watercolours and I use now a plastic box of 10 Winsor and Newton half pans. It´s smaller and less heavy than the Schmincke metal box and more comfortable for carrying around.

As for the image above, here you have a foto and drawing I did in Athens just to make sure eye and camera look differently.

un abrazo
Enrique

Monfragüe

I´ve been sketching for a couple of days at Monfragüe National Park in Extremadura, Southwest Spain. Here´s a photo of a quick sketch I did while walking a 10mile trail from the ruined train station to the tiny village while I stayed. The whole setchbooks can be seen here and some of the photos I took here.