Spain Rocks!

So, my first non-californian rocks! See here the CA rocks. Spain Rocks!

Wasn't too inspired by the rocks around Wien, but in Spain there were all kinds of cool rocks along the beach. I suspect beach rocks are more varied then river rocks. Must be some geological reason for this?

The drawing are done with felt-tip markers. I have a limited set of colors, maybe 16 including black. I actually like the limitation, it forces you to 'bend' a color to your will so to speak. It also shows that you don't have to duplicate the colors around you, but instead it's the balance of colors that counts. Isn't that what impressionism started? Isn't that what Matisse tells us?

Small California Paintings

I've had time to do a couple of small paintings. They remind me of California. I have a collection of rocks, shells, and one starfish we brought from CA (Anika found the starfish on a beach and I dried it out in the oven). I enjoyed painting the mussels, the starfish was a challenge, and the rocks are just pure fun. The little rocks are actually pretty interesting, there are all sorts of colors and patterns and lines in them if you look closely. How to translate the little rocks into paint is amusing, because there are so many ways to do it. You'd think rocks would be boring, but I like my little california rocks and shells.

P.S. I'm starting to collect Austrian rocks too, but so far they'll have to wait their turn.

Panorama from Duerstein Castle

Panorama from the Duerstein Schloss or "Crumbly Castle" looking down over the Donau. The rocks in the foreground look like what you see in many medieval paintings. I always thought the rocks in these paintings were distortions of real rock formations. Guess not.