At 15 m high (50ft), a canopy of 20m in diameter (65ft) and a trunk nearly 2m (6 1/2 ft) thick, this is the Aleppo pine growing at Cortijo del Pino. It’s 200 years old.
A Holm Oak, (Quercus ilex) it’s grazing line determined by hungry wild boar looking for acorns.
A creative guest painting in the shade of the awning…
Early evening, an abandoned farm house on the Rio Caramel…
Torre de Salazar with cave houses on the Alto Plano.
Here at Los Gázquez we realised, a long time ago, that the best way to connect to a landscape you may want to include in any prospective art piece, is to make colour from the very land you are using as your subject.
We start the day with our ‘creative guests’ setting out for a walk from the cortijada into the nearby sierras. These are sedimentary, rocky mountain ranges that stretch from the Sierra Nevada all the way to Italy and are rich in calcium carbonates (obviously) and sand stone. The combination of the two create some fantastic chemical precipitates which are there for the taking. Erosion through the action of extreme weather events coursing down normally dry fluvial systems reveal a rich source of colour and variety.
Some deposits are pure chalk and are equally useful in creating colour as well as a medium for holding colour such as gouache or even pastel.
I love it when at a thousand meters or more up in the mountains you can uncover shells from the sea bed. It’s interesting to note that even forested slopes, after a little observation, start to reveal their strata.
Even minerals that are mixed with higher amounts of organic matter are permissible. As long as it has a high ‘tinting’ strength then it is fine to use. For our purposes ‘fugitive’ pigments (pigments which are impermanent and may blacken in time) are fine as this is more of an exercise than a commercial operation. High tannin levels in the forest floor help. Our samples are ‘riddled’ and ground into fine powder and then added to a variety of ‘vehicles’ such as water, which on paper sufficiently textured to adopt colour is fine, Gum Arabic, which is the sappy excreta of acacia as well as co-polymer (wood glue) diluted with water.
Different qualities of refraction are achieved depending upon the tinting strength of the pigment and the texture and absorbency of the paper it is being applied to.
It’s a simple observation really, and one that escapes people, but to capture the colour of a mountain, a good place to start is to capture the colour of a mountain.
Cortijada Los Gázquez had more than a few kind words from these interesting folks last week…
and you can read more by looking here.
For more information see here.
A creative holiday for landscape painters. For more information see here.
Cortijada Los Gázquez's Creative Courses and the JOYA residency are affiliated to the University of Granada, Facultad de Bellas Artes
Cortijada Los Gázquez Arts Club runs a series of residential/non-residential art classes for beginners. Please see our web site for more information.
Cortijada Los Gázquez has a close relationship with a local natural history guide, Jesus. aka Indalo de Oz. Jesus is happy to take guests here at the cortijo for one or two day wildlife excursions around Almeria. It's a valuable excursion too giving you a deep insight into Almeria it's wildlife and it's people.
Transition Culture more here
