Our Day with Dali
Jackie took us to visit Teatre Museu Dali in the Catalan town of Figueres, Dali's home city.
Obviously Dali designed his own museum, who else would put giant eggs on the roof of a building, what a hoot!
This car with the statue on the hood has "people" and vines inside and rests in the central courtyard.
Dali loved to tell people that he was a genius and I believe he was. He could draw like a genius, he was wildly creative and of course he was a marketing genius. Weird, but genius just the same.
This gold dragon with egg is one of many similar pieces Dali designed.
We did not have time to sketch or paint during our visit to the Dali Museum so Laura saved the Guide map and cut it up to create this collage in her Watercolor Journal. I included tips on creating collages in Watercolor Journals from Laura in my October Newsletter in an article titled 10 TIPS FOR CREATING ARTFUL MEMORIES WHILE TRAVELING. If you would like to receive a copy of the newsletter, email me using the contact page on my website, www.sandydelehanty.com.
We went to a cute place for lunch that serves Creps Brittany style, so Jackie felt right at home, because she is orginally from Belgium. They made a bar out of this cute car so Jackie and I had to have our photo taken in it.
More photos from my recent Watercolor Journaling Workshop in Spain
I finally found time to get back to blogging so here are photos from the rest our our trip in to Spain in September with our tour guide Jackie Grandchamps of French Escapade.
I left off with our day of painting in the lovely medieval village of Pals. I just had time to sketch this little painting of Judy's cute corner with the leaning tower before it was time to leave, so I finished painting it while on vacation in France after the painting trip. The stone walls in this little village have a pretty buttery color in the afternoon light, great fun to try to capture with my watercolors. I also add a story about my day when I am painting, great fun to read years later and recall the fun day we all had there.
Janet wanted a day to swim in the Mediterranean Sea and lay on the beach, so she stayed back in Calella de Palafrugel while we were painting in Pals. She took her watercolors with her to the beach and created this charming little painting of the sea and the rocks in her journal.
Our first painting day in Spain we went to a botanical garden with its very own castle called Cap Roig. Being day one, we were all a bit nervous of course, and many of the paintings did not get photographed afterward because everyone wanted to "fix them". So here are some of the photos I have received of paintings done that day. My lesson that day was on "K.I.S.S." (keep it simple stupid) and how to capture shadows quickly so as not to chase the light. So, to keep it simple I chose to paint a portion of one window of the castle and depict the contrast between the hard steel bars and stone walls and the leafy vine.
Judy also painted a window and vine and captured the rich warm color of the stones.
Janet sent me a photo of her painting of the castle at Cap Roig too, love her colors!
Linda from Minnesota went down below and captured this view of the top of the castle at Jardins de Cap Roig above a hedge. Not an easy angle but she did a great job of showing us the castle.
This is Laura's painting of a different window in the same castle, this one has a Moorish shape to it which Laura worked hard to capture. She did it.
Our home on the Costa Brava was in the tiny village of Calella de Palafrugel where our hotel looked right out over the Mediteranean Sea. Naturally there were plenty of views to paint in all directions. Here we are painting in our "studio" right in front of our hotel.
And here is the view of Velcro man's house that we were painting. Jackie told us the story of the man who originally built the house, he was Swiss and made his fortune because he invented Velcro. His son owns the home now.
The house is built on rocks so it provided a good subject for a lesson in painting rocks in a quick and simple manner, so here is my demo painting in which I concntrated on getting the rocks "rocky".
The students really got into painting rocky rocks, and we certainly had plenty to paint. Here is Janet's painting with bold rocks and a warm wall.
And this is Ann from Australia's painting. I like her colors, very Catalan with the great red roof tiles, bright pots and her green trees.
Another angle showing our cute village. We all loved this place!
The Catalan flag flying above more rocks. We were not lacking in rocks to paint.
Linda and Tom walked down to a little beach further along the path from our hotel and she painted this great little painting of the rocks and windblown trees.
Every evening we strolled down one or the other of the two streets to our choice of restaurants and enjoyed the Catalan quisene. The food was always excellent, but sometimes new and a bit strange.
This shot proves you can take the man out of Minnesota but you cannot take Minnesota out of the man! (Tom's reaction to being told to just "pull the head off" of the big shrimps to get at the meat.)
