Printmaking Courses in Spain

Lovely Mild Weather, Wonderful People, Four-Legged Lilliputians, Printmaking and Painting

More than anything else I wanted to paint this summer. Though I’ve made my living for many years doing printmaking, a painter has to paint. So I made up my mind to devote this summer to oils and pigments on canvas. In the end it was an eventful summer–including a brush fire that ravaged 2,000 acres of foothills just four kilometers down the valley from us. And, thanks to an old friend who showed up unexpectedly I even managed to squeeze in some painting.

May at Our House

The month of May in Granada is quite summery, at least by English standards. This one was made memorable for me by the Toronto artist, Jennifer Morgan, who wrote to ask if I could mount a one-day workshop for her and six other members of her family. Nobody had ever requested anything like that before but I said sure, we’d give it a try. The Morgan family solarplate experience turned out to be a big success, thanks in large part to the uniformly high level of artistic talent of Jennifer’s entire family, starting with her mother, the Canadian novelist Bernice Morgan.

Then mid-month Mike finally got to meet Patricia Wood-Wynn from the Spanish Tourist Office in Chicago. They had exchanged emails for a couple of years but had never met till she showed up in Granada shepherdessing a group of American travel writers. The evening before they arrived Mike took Patricia and a reporter who arrived early for beer and tapas at one of the sidewalk cafes on the Paseo de los Tristes (“Melancholy Walk” because it used to be the path up to the Granada cemetery.) The terrace is located directly beneath the Alhambra fortress and palace, perched high on the opposite side of the Río Darro. The monument–lit up on summer nights–made a profound impression on the two midwestern girls, who kept repeating: “I can’t believe I’m sitting here in Granada right underneath the Alhambra!”

.

A Soul Sister Experience

Late in May I received an email from an English artist who was on a walking tour in western Andalusia. She wanted to spend a week in the studio with me at the end of her walk. Meeting Carole Pearson was a magical experience. After just one morning in the studio together we both knew we were soul sisters, the kind of friends you make when you’re 15 years old. We were in agreement on virtually everything: art, politics, rural living, children… Carole was smitten by our 18-year-old twin grandsons (“Where did they get those manners?”) and, before the week was out, invite them to spend a couple of months this summer with her family in Cornwall. Alex was unable to make it as he was studying for an English qualification, but Dean went and spent the summer there gardening, tending the horses, preparing firewood and making Spanish-style mojitos and paellas for the family.  He came home affirming that it had been “the best summer of my life!” Carole now refers to him in her emails as “our adopted son.”

Snapshots from May–Carol Pearson, Patricia Wood-Wynn & Friend, Maureen, Cats & Dogs, Morgan Family Workshop

June in Granada

We spent the month of June trying to bring the garden under control, something we never fully achieve. There must be some appeal in the disorder, however, as a Spanish friend traveling in England sent us a postcard saying she had just visited Ruskin’s home and that his garden reminded her of ours.

The big printmaking event in Granada in June is Impresiones Gigantes, a festival of oversized linocuts that are pressed by a road roller in the Plaza del Humilladero. Brian Berry, Irish printmaker from Cork started the project a couple of years ago and every year it’s more varied and more fun and attracts a more varied public.

This month we also hosted (I do the workshop; Mike does the lunches.) what has become an annual three-day visit by a select group of students from the International Baccalaureate School of Bremen, Germany, accompanied by their art teacher, Brenda Ahrens, who has become a good friend over the years. My secret for dealing with art students? Take them by surprise by treating them as artists. Some of the work they produce is truly remarkable.

Snapshots from June: Art Students Bremen, Impresiones Gigantes, Pinos Cloudscape, Herb Garden

P.S. If you are not already following this blog and would like to be informed by email whenever it’s updated, please scroll to the top of this page and click on “Follow.” Thank you. Maureen 

Are you moved to make a comment? Make it here.