We recently returned home from a road trip to Spain where we visited with friends of ours who live in Benisanó, a small village outside of Valencia. I had brought my watercolours with me, imagining I would have lots time to create images of the places we visited along the way. That didn’t really turn out to be the case, because traveling is its own adventure which certainly has its own demands.

However during the five days we visited with our friends, I did have plenty of leisure time to capture views of their environment. In particular, from the upstairs back terrace of their house I found great views of the Catholic church as well as the Medieval castle. Both are very beautiful when illuminated at night – but also in the morning.

For the church, I chose a composition (of buildings, vegetation and light) which peaked at about 10:00 a.m.; while for the Castle, I found a similar composition but which peaked at about noon. So while most everyone was still sleeping (it was Spanish time) I sipped my tea and created value studies of these two different scenes. In addition, I biked over to a field on the other side of the Castle and tried out a quick study of that perspective, too. Luckily, I had a few watercolour blocks with me so I could switch from one to the other without tearing off the page. (Blocks which are glued on all four sides allow for working wet-in-wet while still drying out flat. That’s important!)

I was able to finish the Catholic-church-terrace piece while there but the Castle-terrace one had to wait until we returned home. In both cases I did the value study from the patio, while snapping photos of the light I wanted to capture. As I continue to develop my own process, I am no longer hesitant to make use of photographs (I used to be terrified of being trapped by their visual dictates!). But what is incredibly important to me still is to feel the immediacy of any particular landscape, what it is saying to me, how I feel about it, how I wish to interpret it. When that stays in the foreground (whether assisted by photos or not) the drawing, watercolour or oil painting usually turns out fine.

So here are my three postcards from Benisanó. The Church (from the terrace), The Castle (from the terrace) and The Castle (from the field).  I think the terrace ones worked out better simply because I had the time to get the compositions right.