The old ruin...

Some time ago I discovered this old ruin

in a neighboring village...

 

 

this is the view of it, seen from the road



 

 

places like this can ignite in me fantasies

of times gone by, of times when life was

hard, but overseeable

...

 

I decided to enter the plot and was surprised how easy

it was to get to the old finca

 



 

as for me remnants of buildings like this will remain untouched

forever, for me they represent pure beauty

 



 

for how could one ever recreate a picture like this?



 

 

the weathered door led into a small, secluded patio

 



 

that I want to investigate another time...

 

but for today this was it: my world of fantasy

so very close...

 

Am I the only one who has a crush for ruins like this?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Regina



Martes!

 

 

Hi there!

 

 

 

Another week has passed by, time seems to run from Tuesday to Martes...

 

Above is a close-up view of one of the lavender plants in our garden. We have several of them, some of these already very old.

 

When we came to live here, the plants had been neglected and I remember going to the garden centre and asking whether it would be possible to prune them (I had no idea!):

"Oh no, you have to buy new ones, old plants can by no way be pruned".

 Now for me this is the right attitude to become suspicious and we thought: why not try it first? Of course we can always buy new ones in case our actions become disastrous.

And so we did: the plants were pruned by my DH and until today they seem to have appreciated his treatment. They flourish as never before!

 

The second little photo is of a fisherman's boat that we discovered at a very secluded little bay in our village. It is called Pirate Bay and with some fantasy you can imagine that various illegal things can happen there. In the past, but also these days with more and more immigrants from North Africa crossing the Mediterranean...

 

The only possible handicap is that there is no road close by, just a small canyon with abundant shrubs and woodland. Such a canyon is called a 'barranc' in Spanish

Barranc de la Viuda

 

  Cala Llebeig aka Pirate Bay

 

 You see what I mean?

 

with just a little fantasy...

 

Thanks for visiting today,

 

Regina



Walking in the fields

Now the weather is still good for walking and nature is in full bloom, we joined the monthly walk of our 'Coffee, Chatting and Stroll' group (KKK in Dutch, not to be mistaken by the US meaning)

 

This time the walk started in the neighbor village of Benitatchell

in the Costa Blanca, of course...

 

 

one of the few buildings we came by, is this new finca style house

 that is almost finished

The trees here are mainly pine trees and they are protected now, after lots of them were cut down due to intensive building activities some twenty years ago

 

 

the roadside and borders of wine fields are full with flowers at this time of the year

 

 

the pink variety of this little, lovely flower of which I don't know its name

 

 

this one is much bigger, but quite as beautiful

 



 

Benitatchell is a very old village, on this picture seen from the backside

 



 

the size of the bigger pink flower can be seen above

 



 

almost at the end of the walk...

 

Except for a few cars, nobody else was seen. How lucky we are, here in the Costa Blanca, in Spain

 

PS though absolutely not art related, I thought you might like to get a glimpse of the environment we live in. This all is at a few miles distance from the Mediterranaen!

 

Thanks for visiting today,

 

Regina



 

Hello all,

 

After a very long and fantastic trip throughout France and the Netherlands we came back in Spain about a month ago.

 

 

I have not posted since July and have come to the conclusion that this will be my final blogpost.

 

Will I miss it, after over 9 years?

Well, frankly I don't know, but after having had some serious doubts before I am now sure that my blog does not add anything new into the world, not anymore.

 

Somehow my life in Spain and the activities I am involved with keep me from creating at the same level that I was used to while living on our island in the Caribbean.

 

Another thing is, that I am growing more and more reluctant to write about personal/private matters.

 

On the web there is a wealth of beautiful images to swoon over. Sources for inspiration galore..!

 

A special thank you for the people who have been following and commenting on this blog over the years: Thank You!

 

Maybe one day I will join Instagram (if I do miss my blog), but until that time, should you want to connect, I am on Facebook.

 

Wishing you health, inspiration and creativity,

 

Regina

 

Short, summer

Just a short post today. 

It is sweltering hot in Spain; days to swim in the sea, a time to do just the necessary things

So: just this dyptich, that I quickly composed from the files of collages I once made...

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

***

Regina

Guggenheim Bilbao

It is almost one year ago that we visited this great museum

in Bilbao, Spain

A funny thing is, at this moment our daughter and her partner are visiting this very same place. 

They are traveling with our Roadtrek motorhome, so needless to say that our thoughts are with them a lot these days. I hope they enjoy Northern Spain as much as we did...

Grey weather today

 

 

Hi there,

 

 

This morning we awoke to very dark and grey skies. It made me think that it was very early, not yet time to get out of bed...

 

It seems though we have a little interlude in the very sunny and hot weather of the recent weeks.

 

When we were living in the tropics this grey weather sometimes happened and upon occurring I mostly felt happy, for it enabled me to stay inside and make the most (creatively speaking) of it!

 

This kind of feeling I have today...

 

Looking for possibilities I found the picture of numerous beaded strands  (Pinterest) and was attracted by its colors. And at the same time I found back a picture of a postcard I once made, there is a detail on the right. I was surprised to find that it is made up of these very similar colors.

 

Now, I wonder, what could this mean?? 

Could this be my style, is it related to my personality?

 

However, it inspires me to go and do something creative on this grey day in Spain!

Backgrounds

 

 

 

 

 

Hi!

 

Not much happening in my corner of Spain.

 

Though we do have the Moors and Christian

 festival currently,with its closing part tonight,

I once again did not go to watch it.

 

Somehow celebrating these fights of ages ago by way of a reenactment does not appeal to me.

Especially in this time where history seems to repeat itself throughout our Western world, I prefer not to celebrate it, how beautiful and wonderful this spectacle may be...

 

On a different note:

the storyboard above has been composed of details of some recent work by me. They are backgrounds at this stage,

I just started painting without any objective in mind, simply enjoying 'what if?'

 

We are supposed to paint clouds this time,

 but despite the fact that I love to look at skies, I feel no need to paint them.

 But that may come later,

this time just background details

 

***

Enjoy your Sunday, thanks for reading

 

Regina

 

Chiringuito's

After a hot summer day in Spain, it is always good chilling

in one of the many chiringuito's

that are on the coast...

 

 like this one,

between the lovely village of Moraira

 

 

somewhere in between

 

 

 where young and old come for a

refreshment and some music...

 

 

with in the distance the next city,

Calpe

 

More on these lovely beach businesses here:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiringuito

 

Greetings from Spain,

 

Regina

Spanish fiber art...

Soon after moving from the Antilles to Spain, I noticed that once again we had chosen to live in an area with little textile art.

 

So I was very happy to find an open air exhibition of textiles in the neighboring village of 'Gata de Gorgos' and got a chance to visit on the very last day. We talk about some years ago now...

 

 

 

The expo was held in one of the village's narrow streets.

The works were simply hanging from the Spanish balconies,

out in the open during the hot month of August (I think it was August, but it definitely was a whole month in summer)

The weather effect was clearly visible on many entries and I remember that I was very disappointed and upset about the way these textiles were being dealt with.

I think that was the moment for me to start exploring a different medium...

 

 

This week I browsed through the images of this event and maybe you can imagine my resentment if you take a closer look at the first picture...

 

 

for look at this painting (it seems to have been painted on a bed sheet)!

I really wonder why the artist has been willing to make so much

 effort while working on a 'throw away'

base 

 

Btw: the images seem to depict some Moorish scenes. The second one also is probably Moroccan or North African, but could as well be Caribbean, the women look very similar

 

Coming from a culture of 'quilt angels' on exhibitions and a long fight for recognition, I realise that there is a long way to go for this in Spain. I won't take part in this fight, just want to enjoy life and make art, so I am painting now.

 

Happy Easter!

 

Regina



Playful

 

Just some playing today:

 

 

I chose a picture of the Roman Theatre in Cartagena,

 

 

and laid over this picture a detail of a mural

...

 

 

then the playing started: filters and layers in my favorite editing program

and there it is: Cartagena digital collage

 

Enjoy the beautiful spring weather!

 

Regina



Cartagena day 1

 

Last week we visited Cartagena...

 

We went there for a special reason, but since there was some time left before our appointment, we visited the old town

 

 

and were surprised by the beautiful old buildings

this is the town hall

 

 

of course, this is the Mediteranean, so there was a lovely boulevard...

 

 

 A glimpse of the 'Calle Mayor', the city's main shopping street. It was very quiet, since it was siesta time...

 

 

detail of the town hall building

 

 

but our main goal was this: the Roman Theatre

 

situated behind and above the Plaza de Ayuntamiento, one can get there by steps (like we did) or by using the formal entrance via the museum

 

 

it was very special because of its juxtaposition to the present, old and new together making a shift between then and now

 

 

In the city of Cartagena archeologists are working and discovering remnants from the past until today.

We loved the atmosphere and the loving care being given to old buildings all over the city...

 

to be continued



Almond blossoms...

 

Almond blossems, so beautiful, in the valley right behind our coast

It is called the Jalon valley...

 

 

The valley is enclosed by urbanisations (newly built neighborhoods) , like the one above

 

 

and like often in these landscapes, there's a ruin

I love Spain!

 

By now the blossoms are gone, Sahara dust has fallen down and pine tree pollen put a yellow glow on all earthly things, which means

 

Spring is finally here..!

 

Regina



From paper to digital

Hi!

 

(click)

 

A quiet day in the studio. This week I finished three paintings!

 

Two of them are of someone's grandchildren and

 the third is our painting club's topic: a nude

 

I was not too eager to paint in a naturalistic way, but in the end I am happy with the results. I will show a pic in a near future post, promised.

 

Meanwhile I played a little with my huge collection of pictures and chose three of my paper collages to work with. Mixing these in Photoshop resulted in the above digital collage. Please let me know in a comment if you are interested to see the source images...

 

Now out and about for lunch in one of the many fish-restaurants in our lovely neighborhood.

 

Enjoy your Sunday!

 

Regina

This is the place...

Hi!

 

This morning I discovered this documentary of the place where we live. There is a bit of business PR in it, but on the whole you get a pretty good impression! We feel very fortunate to live here!

 

Happy weekend,

 

Regina

http://upnowcostablanca.com/project/moraira-teulada-the-place-to-live-visit-tv-documentary-2016/

Mountain walk

click the image please to see all three pictures 

 

This week our visiters and I made a pretty strenuous walk on the Olta mountain close to our village.
I could not have done it all by myself, but it was so worth the effort!
 

Amongst all the great vistas of the surrounding mountains and the ever present Mediterranean Sea, we saw a heart shaped climbing plant, the always impressing Bernia mountain range opposite of the Olta, and cairns of course. By now I have seen so many of these stone path markers... In Norway, the USA, on Caribbean beaches and also here in Spain!


Enjoy your day, thanks for reading

Regina

The beach, the sea

 

 

Hi!

 

You take: a Photo editing programm, pictures of a coconut tree, a country-guitar player and the Caribbean Sea

 

and there you have it: reflection of a grey Monday in Spain

 

Regina