Asturias is famous for its rain. In the mountains the clouds don't just scoot along overhead at a friendly distance. Descending into Belmonte you can see the whisps of the cloud blanket below you wafting across the shanks of the hill on the opposite side of the valley. When you descend into the murk you have a vivid sense of being surrounded by moisture.
What kind of an idiot would go out painting in these conditions?
I sit under an oak tree and the wind makes the heavier drops fall on my head. There is a light drizzle which is not enough to deter me from getting my paints and brushes out because I know it never rains all the time and when the sun breaks through the clouds and hits the chestnut leaves in the thicket in front of me it will be a spectacle.
I cannot capture these moments but I want to witness them. Painting outside is more than just the product. It is a meditation that you do outside in the face of the world, with the wind on your face, acorns falling on your head and your rain clothes getting muddy. It is discomfort. It is being alive.
I love your painting and your blog about it reminds me of my grandmother's watercolors that sit in a wet storage shed--getting rained on. (It is not my shed-a poor relative who didn't value her impressionistic style feigns ignorance.) Several years of neglect have grown mold over her signature. My birthright to those paintings- my grandmother's lifetime legacy-are dissolving down into the ground and groundwater where the colors swirl into next year's lemons or perhaps visit your muse, so you can paint the tree in the above picture. You answered the call. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments Desert Rocks. Whatever is happening to those paintings your grandmother left? I like to think of my paintings like Basho's poems: maybe some of them will stick somewhere, but others will disappear and that is OK. It gives them freshness!
ReplyDeleteI had to come back and look at your lovely painting again. You really are an artist!
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what a awesome idea!!! I love it!
ReplyDeletea mi también me encantan tus árboles, y totalmente de acuerdo, eres un artista!
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