Montserrat... Take Two!

Rerun! Back to Montserrat today, and it was the best. I got to spend as much time as I wanted in front of my beloved Mir paintings! I kinda freaked out at first though, because the lower level--where the paintings are located--was closed for construction. OMG. Disaster!! My blood ran cold at first. I mustered all of my equanimity and went back out to the ticket counter and asked (quite calmly, I'm sure of it) how I could find my way to the Mir paintings, now that the stairwell was tancat (I see that word a lot here in Cataloña... it means "closed"). After some language sorting-out (no, not "Miró"!), I was led through the maze of gallery spaces to my room! Little kayzine, happy again! (Five pages of notes scrawled, I won't bore you with them.)

While I was up there, I heard another 1 p.m. boy's choir and recorded a video of it... so when I get home, any of you within spittin' range will get to see that (or be subjected to that, as the case may be!) And--camera functioning--I got some of my own photos of the extraordinary interior of the basilica.

So. Painting? (I suppose you're wondering?) I had another rough day with that yesterday, the painting that I was wanting to commence... and did commence.... will have to be addressed at home. Since there were no supports (stretcher bars) at the art store, I attempted to tape the canvas to a board. Well. Another example of the fine craftsmanship of the products here (not!), the masking tape is about as sticky as a post-it note. It didn't even stay attached through dinner, when I returned to the studio to paint, the canvas had half fallen off the board. Grrr. Undaunted, I applied another pound of tape, and began to mix paint. Oh horrors!! The cobalt blue I had purchased to replace my dwindling supply was the consistancy of syrup and had practically no pigment in it!!! Gawd.

Well, perseverance furthers, as the I Ching says. So I rustled through the raw pigments in Tupperware (left from Montserrat restoration, mentioned in a previous post), and found the perfect shade of cobalt blue (photo, above). Yeah, one would think, anyway, but as it turns out, when mixed with my medium (walnut oil/alkyd, which makes the paintings dry really quickly so I can get them home), the color vanishes and a deep dark dull navy blue results. OK. I caved. As I said, I'll paint that one at home. (And you don't get to see the rough start of it either, it's pretty dreary, what with the ghastly "blue".)

I'm going to Barcelona tomorrow, so my painting days are pretty much over. Tonight I'll do a work on paper for Marcel's birthday gift. We have another big blowout party/concert coming up for that, on Saturday. That will likely be my last artistic effort here at Can Serrat.