STUDIO BLUE SEA
Welcome to our online studio where we record some of our creative work – paintings and drawings, marbled papers and hand-made books. Please click on the tabs above to view each gallery.
At present we’re exploring Spain’s Mediterranean coast.
Posted in Art, Bookbinding, Travel, Uncategorized
Tagged Art, artist, boat people, gallery, mar menor, McGrevy, Mediterranean, sailing, sea, Spain, Travel, wayfarer
Circumnavigating the world has never been a goal for us but circumnavigating a continent? We’re nearly half way around Africa already: a 14 year meander from Cape Town via Namibia, Brazil, the West Indies, back to England and now the Mediterranean, 6000 miles north of our starting point all those years ago. It’s a fancy we pounce on occasionally, enticed by the adventure, the magnificence of Africa and the family and friends who live there, and then, the opportunity to depart Cape Town again and to re-visit the places we loved and leave out those not worth returning to. But the wholesome exterior of the scheme masks the gory innards – the unappetizing truth that to complete the circle of Africa involves sailing the Indian Ocean, knowing that it’s the pirates who rule the waves in that part of the world. We’re left with circumnavigating islands, a concept, nowadays, that is far more beguiling, especially when we can do it on foot with SBS anchored safely in the island’s lee.
With this in mind we sailed to Tabarca 4 miles off the Spanish coast, a tiny 1750 x 300 metre landmass within a 1,400 hectare Protected Marine Reserve of unspoilt, natural beauty and crystal-clear waters.
It was mid-afternoon when we watched the anchor descend through sun-dappled, turquoise water and nestle on our chosen patch of sand off the small port. Not more than 100 metres ahead lay the steep-to northern side of
Tabarca, Spain
Tabarca, the rocky shore surmounted by a wall of ashlar stone. An arched entrance in the wall enticed us to launch the dinghy and come ashore but with southerly winds predicted for the next few days we would be safely protected and we would take our time exploring the island the following day. We could see parts of the historic settlement beyond the ancient wall: whitewashed houses with blue-painted shutters, wrought-iron balcony grilles holding back massed pots of cascading fiery geraniums and the ancient church, solemn yet splendid in the fading sun.
We looked up Tabarca’s history and found that her first inhabitants had been Berber pirates from Morocco, African corsairs who had used the island as a base from which to launch their raids on the Spanish coast. In 1768, King Carlos lll of Spain created a settlement by royal edict and had built a fortified town where a small garrison was deployed to act as a lookout and to repel pirates.
So, safe from pirates, we retired to our bunk looking forward to our shore-side exploration. As the night wore on we heard the wind rising and as its direction became more westerly we took turns to keep an anchor watch. We were in danger of a lee shore – a situation of strong onshore winds driving a boat towards the land – and by sun-up it was blowing 25 knots from the northwest. We very reluctantly raised the anchor and headed to sea.
Perhaps we’ll have another chance to walk about Tabarca. Our brief encounter beckons us back and it’s only other tourists we have to figure in to the equation of our return. They’ve replaced pirates as rulers of the waves in this part of the world.
In our experience it’s quite true that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. As we’re nowhere near any plains we haven’t had that much of the wet stuff since we started cruising here. We rely on rain collection for many of our needs so the precipitation forecast is part of our evening weather download and last evening we were warned to expect an early morning deluge. They were far too optimistic but we did catch about 3 litres off the bimini and the deck had a light rinse-off.
Well now, to get to the point, our delight in a bit of rain is nothing to the smile that the land was wearing this morning. It sparkled and glowed in the sunlight; the trees carried their foliage like ladies at Ascot; the limestone cliffs showed off their bands of age in shades of white unexplored by paint marketers and the pebbly beach dazzled as though scattered with diamonds.
We sat on deck in the sun, cracking street-market walnuts for carrot cake, watching boundless tropical fish darting after walnut crumbs
Stone Steps to the Beach
and soaking up the peace and radiance.
Here’s a sketch of the lovely bay that has been our vista all this week. We think we’ll stay another week: nature is in her spring finery and we’re here to enjoy it.
Anyone who’s seen our home lately may be forgiven for telling their friends “they’re lazy louts who don’t care about looking after their place and thank goodness they’re not our neighbours!”. Don’t you just hate it when people base their judgements on nothing more than visual appearance? I mean, painting our home is not like popping down to B&Q to buy an end-of-range-half-price-big-savings tin of Pride of India Pink, toning it down with some whitewash and the bottle of out-of-date Milk of Magnesia from the back of the bathroom cupboard and then waiting (quite a while) for a sunny Sunday to get out the recycled roller and freshen up the place. Oh no, the application of paint to our garret requires a HAWWWL and that is a VERRRY EXPENSIVE BUSINESS!
In December we were in a part of Spain where the local expat community was organising a Christmas Fayre and into our minds popped the idea that our participation would bring us the means to a HAWWWL, all in one day. Spurred on by the desire for new paint and fuelled by the drama of the Christmas countdown (17 days to go!), we handed over our euro to secure a table.
(Now those of you who’ve been aboard our blogging wagon for a while will know that, apart from the line-up of other pies that keep us in box wine, we also deal in exquisite decorative reproductions of Old Master drawings which we sell for pitifully low sums to people who can’t afford the real thing or can’t buy it because the Queen’s got it and she’s not selling.)
So, on the rather cold, grey day of the ‘fayre’ we packed our carefully chosen decorative repro drawings, threw in a few hand-made books and added some small stuff to fill in any spaces on the table. We took the dinghy ashore and dragged our goods across the sodden beach and up to the seaside venue.
The restaurant tables, denuded of serviette-wrapped cutlery and sticky condiments, were arranged along the walls down both sides of the room. We were ushered to ours … the second table – almost pole position. Our name, Studio Blue Sea, was beautifully printed on a card anchored to the table top with a foil-wrapped, miniature, chocolate Father Christmas. Next to us, in third place, stood a table already quivering under the strain of a mountain of krapfen and kuchen, cellophaned zimsterne and linzersterne, pfeffernuesse and engelsaugen. Surely not a single baking ingredient could remain on the shelves of any of the local supermarkets.
Exactly at the appointed time the doors opened to the hungry public … and hungry they were! A queue formed by our table, blocking our view. Alas, it was not for us. The Ham burgers next to us began to feed the five thousand. It was like a bread line in Berlin circa 1945 and by the looks of the clientele they had probably experienced that moment first hand. The legs on our neighbour’s table slowly straightened as the load lightened and the legs in the queue buckled under the strain of gugelhupf and schaumkuss.
Within an hour the crowd had thinned and the Germans stacked their empty plates and ordered an armoured van for their money. We gazed at our own table and took stock of the situation – we had sold one bookmark for 75 cents, the 25 cents change waved away by our kind benefactor. Around us the other table-holders were packing up; the entrance was clear of new attendees.
And then, suddenly, from across the room, a woman approached, smiling, and we knew we were seeing a connoisseur of art and of all things beautiful … poised, groomed, well-educated, well-travelled, old-moneyed, heading towards us to fulfill our dreams. She stopped before our table of plenty and gazed at the drawing of the old man with long hair and even longer beard. A large label proclaimed, ‘After Leonardo Da Vinci, Self Portrait, red chalk drawing’. At last, someone who knew a Master piece when she saw one, someone who couldn’t believe their luck at finding such a wonderful decorative original at such a low price! She raised her eyes to us. We waited. Would she take them all? Offer us a fully stocked studio in her Italian palace? Organise someone else to take care of our paint job? We held our breath.
“It doesn’t look a bit like you for a self-portrait,” she said. She shook her head and turned to the door.
We packed away our goods and straggled with the stragglers. The plod back down the beach was shadowed by a thundercloud. We climbed aboard SBS under light drizzle and counted our blessings before counting our takings: four euros, minus one for the table and two for the dogs’ home. At least we had a miniature chocolate Santa to look forward to.
It wasn’t until later that we discovered it was hollow.
SELF PORTRAIT after LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452 – 1519)
Posted in Art, Drawing, Travel, Uncategorized
Tagged Drawing, old master, Spain, Travel, writing
ZEBRA Ink and dry brush 22 x 30 cm
Art rental galleries supply original art to high-end hotels, restaurants and private homes. They often work with interior designers and consultants and our own experience of making work available to the art rental market has been a positive one.
This zebra drawing has been an art rental for 10 years and has made its money back many times over. What’s interesting about this piece is how badly the paper has faded … not at all noticeable to the clients who’ve had it gracing their walls but immediately obvious to us on its return. We took off the frame and mount and you can see that the original blue ground which gave a summer feel to the scene is now a rather nice buff colour and it changes the atmosphere to Africa in the dry winter months: those zebra should not be carrying that sort of condition at this time of year!
GULL'S EGGS
The gulls are nesting. Their beautiful greenish-coloured eggs are speckled with brownish and purplish blotches and lie in well-designed and executed ground-built nests. They don’t bother to hide their eggs but they guard them fiercely, the female warming and hatching, the male standing by ready to repel invaders. If we venture too close they both rise up and circle overhead berating us harshly.
Seagulls are scavengers and of great value in helping to control pollution of the water and the countryside. Some species feed on insects and if you’ve been to Salt Lake City you’ll see a monument to sea gulls that commemorates the saving from starvation of the early Mormon settlement when flocks of gulls devoured the black crickets that were destroying the crops.
We love this raucous, sociable, coastal species of bird that is often overlooked or dismissed.
MARBLED SKETCHBOOK/JOURNAL
Red is the most difficult colour to work with in marbling. It needs to be applied to the marbling bath first so that the other colours condense it and in that way it intensifies and should vibrate with energy. It’s the colour I have the most problems with … I end up with a fair number of pink-hued papers and use them for bookbinding projects anyway! Here’s another of my less-than-red books.
Marbled covers, end papers, fly leaves. Suedette spine and corners. Long stitch binding. 110gsm laid paper pages.
SEASCAPE - watercolour - 9 x 12.5cm
We started this blog for a very specific reason that we now don’t remember! Studio Blue Sea has wandered off in its own direction and, like life, just unfolds. Writing and recording is fun but the best part of this virtual experience is fellow bloggers who’ve been so kind with likes, comments and emails. We’re amazed by the number of people who’ve chosen to follow us and can’t believe we’re approaching the 100 mark. As a token of appreciation we’ve decided to send our 100th follower a small watercolour – the little painting of a seascape shown here. When you join, number 100, we’ll get in contact with you directly.
In the meantime, a very big thank you to our readers and our followers and everyone who likes and comments on Studio Blue Sea.
