sketches from London-Rubens to Paula Rego

When I was in London a few months ago, I had to go a few times to the National gallery in Trafalgar Square to see one of my favorite paintings, this lion hunt by Rubens. It is unfinished but I would like to think that he saw it as finished as it is- really bold and anticipates the romantics like Gericault and Delacroix by about 100 years.

It is a really fun piece to look at- the energy in this painting.

Below is a little sketch i did in my notebook, normally I just look at this painting for a long time.





In the nice restaurant at the gallery, there is this fantastic almost graffiti like piece that Paula Rego painted, based on the collection in the National Gallery. Her work incorporated the few images of females in the paintings. It is a long beautiful piece but you cannot get a postcard or anything, these are just a few sketches. It rifts off of Spanish/Portuguese painted tiles and always makes me think of that imaginary Synagogue that Salman Rushdie describes in The Moor's Last Sigh where the main character's mother is interpreting the tiles and telling the future.

Anyways, she is a fascinating artist (to me at least) and her paintings deal with childhood taboos, story telling she does a bit of it all.

click this link to see a minute or two of Paula talking about here studio and how she works

Sketches in Maroc

Here are a few sketches from my small travel sketchbook. Most of these drawings were done in Essaouira, where I spent a few days relaxing and gorging on bbq'd fish in this coastal village.



This is a watercolour sketch which, as often is the case with my trip to Morocco, is indebted to Delacroix. Note in the margins, I have notes written in pencil. Due to his social milieu and Romantic leanings, all of Delacroix's comments are tinged with the nobility of the people and all that jazz. Maybe because I am effectively from there, and a little more cynical- all my comments on the margins of my images are about how that guy wanted more money from me, this guy was a schister and it was interesting to see people in traditional garb with black latex gloves on.




I was looking for the typical music of the region, Gnouia which is fantastic, the hotel guy sent me here....Tauros, a upscale bar where there were people doing fire poi It was as crappy as this guy in the video, I was in hell. So I had to draw from another angle to avoid this misery.



Just a view of someone walking in the street.

June 05 2006

Rifting on one of my favourite paintings in London, the lion hunt by Rubens.