Joaquim Mir

In the shelving that sits to the left of my work table I found a large moldy book on the artist Joaquim Mir, who is now my new favorite artist! Well, maybe it's a tie. My former favorite artist--Joaquin Sorolla--is the singular reason why I am here in Spain, so perhaps he should remain at the top of the list?! Anyway, I'm trying to make out what this book says about him (of course it would be in Spanish! ...worse... Catalan, actually), and it mentions, in several places, a restaurant called Quatre Gats in Barcelona. So thank you Victoria for urging me to take my laptop (I can't believe I almost didn't) so that I could google it. OK, you gotta check this out.
http://www.4gats.com/
Click on everything there, it will give you a very good idea of the Barcelona vibe!! OMG. I am so going to go there!!! And I am going to go to the contemporary art museum now (MACBA), since I note that some of Mir's work is there.

Well, it's raining again today, and I mean a real Noah's ark deluge. That's OK for now, it insures I get a lot of work done. This is my third full day here, and I am mid-way through my third painting. And, I have started a color mixing exercise (bottom photo) that I never would "find" the time to do, if I was at home.

[Sidenote: someone is playing the piano and singing downstairs right now, it's lovely! I suspect it's one of the musicians, rehearsing for the concert tomorrow night. OMG, he sounds awesome!]

Back to painting... with the excess paint blobs from mixing the first of 12 charts (pic #3), I painted the oh-so-typical of me painting (pic #2) of the decor on the corner of my table. Bleh. Whatever.

As the rains continue, I realize that I'll just have to create my own sunshine inside this old farm house... and so I have embarked on another typical painting-student excercise... "painting from the masters"... and have begun to copy a painting of my new semi-favorite painter (aforementioned Mir), and that is what is underway and what you see at the top of today's pics. Stay tuned on that one... I am very hopeful that it will loosen me up, since his style is all about loose. And I've picked an image that's sunny, too!

Several new artists have arrived in the last couple of days... one from Viet Nam, one from Paris and one from Scandinavia. Pretty rich!