Casares Painting, Autumn Cork Oak and Bahai stage 1

Antonio Machado

XI: Yo voy soñando caminas

I go dreaming down roadways
of evening. Emerald pine-trees
golden hillsides
dusty oak-leaves!…
Where does this road go?
I go travelling, singing,
into the road’s far distance…
– evening falls slow –
‘I bore in my heart
the thorn of passion:
Drew it out one day
And my heart is numb.’

A painting gets done in a number of stages and one of the more exciting apects of this is that you never know what the next part or stage will bring. I've spent a good few weeks now, weather permitting walking through, sitting in, and drawing the forests. As I have done this gradually Automn has turned to winter. Unusally for me but not for the trees that I have been with of late, their leaves stayed on the branches and twigs. Though other trees around the cork oak and I changed their attire to Automn and either lost their leaves or changed them to vibrant yellows and browns for our enjoyment, we carried on with our conversation.

Initially, as I began to work I stuck to large naturally formed pieces of chunky charcoal on large sheets of paper. Fighting with the wind to keep them clipped onto my drawing board.At the end of one long day I actually stopped the traffic on the main road as five of my best drawings on A2 sheets were picked up and sent whirling across the tarmac and stone service. I scampered after them trying desparatly not to crease or smudge the charcoal further. Using charcoal and natural materials felt the right thing to do, especially for this tree, the father of the forest and the provider of so much to so many.

You get to respect these Cork Oak guys as they wind their never ending branches wherever, irrespective of slopes or whatever else. On another day the grunting of three wild boar, two adults and a child came closer and closer and I held my breath until they had eaten enough acorns and passed upwind of where I sat. This chance meet was to be followed by a roe deer grazing with precision.

These sightings as always mark the close of the day and in the fading gloom of the forest the brightness of the sea down below acts a point of navigation.