Sketches of Spain

Hot from my travels in Spain (summer 1985) and all things flamenco I started to make drawings and paintings of fans. One of my fellow painters, Rosalie De Meric, an opera-loving student in her sixties, offered to lend me these beautiful antique fans. I was very grateful to Rosalie for her generosity. With these items [...]

A hot, sunny afternoon in this Andalusian village which has inspired a number of artists, photographers and writers. I didn’t want to disturb these two youngsters as they opened their new game so I used my zoom lens. I like the simplicity of the white building and the range of tones in this timeless scene… [...]

This is a study for the painting of the same name. The antique fans were lent by a fellow student, Rosalie de Meric. I changed the composition quite dramatically for the large canvas. However the study of tones and textures on the dark fan helped a great deal once I was working on the painting. [...]

This is a quick, experimental student painting heavily influenced by my visit to Spain in the summer of 1985. I’ve used the square format that I favoured for the charcoal drawing, Black and White Fans. I was playing with the shapes of various objects on my dressing table and the spaces around them. I used [...]