Sketching along the pista #6

A long gin e tônica is just the thing after a day’s cycling and in Reguengos de Monsaraz they do very long ones indeed. I’m not that keen on sketching food or drinks, but when the situation is relaxed, I do enjoy sketching the scene in bars and bistros.

From my window seat, I had a panoramic view of the bar and small seating area, with the draught beer tap in the foreground and long wall of ‘top shelf’ drinks to my right. This shelf of diverse bottles and uneven profile was perfect for slightly bending the perspective, and the fude nib with expressive grey ink gave a nice loose line.

78º Encontro ÉSk | Alvito

Desenhos de Cristina Rebocho

Sketching along the pista #5

Cycling from Évora to Reguengos de Monsaraz, a brief refreshment stop was taken at Nossa Senhora de Machede. Life goes on at a fairly quiet pace here, and I doubt Machede has ever attracted much attention from the outside world. Yet I was captivated by the Casa do Povo, with its brilliant blue flourishes, and its striking contrast with the blood red trim of its less fancy neighbour, Snack-Bar a Lareira.

This was a brief stop, perhaps 45 minutes, so I needed to get down the essence of the scene quickly. I focused on the two buildings fronting the square (actually more of a triangle), made a lightening outline in blue coloured pencil, and then blocked in the water-coloured areas before applying grey ink and white marker-pen details. As my friend James Hobbs (@jameshobbsart) from London later observed, the buildings appear as boats bobbing in the urban landscape, tethered to their moorings by the ubiquitous Portuguese power lines. For urban sketchers, it doesn’t get much better than this!

Câmara Municipal do Alvito

A pousada do Alvito

Sketching along the pista #4

Manga or Pessoa? This is the difficult choice at Évora’s Fonte de Letras, where artists’ books sit alongside quality fiction and non-fiction, coffee ready at hand. The stock appears seemingly random in its display but on closer inspection is carefully ordered, with furniture and book displays performing a carefully choreographed dance. The ceiling, with its electrical tape artwork by local designer and illustrator Bernardo Bagulho, perfectly mirrors the ordered chaos below.

This is a sketcher’s paradise. I tried to highlight the particular charm of Fonte de Letras using some discreet collage (the store’s advertising leaflet featuring Pessoa and a clipping from a Portuguese-language Manga catalogue) balanced by a limited colour palette. Pessoa reaches into his fluid brain for inspiration, his hand resting on the manuscript, while Tokyo Ghoul dangles his smartphone and touches his temple in slightly perplexed distraction.

With such a complex scene, I started with a thumbnail in ‘Mr Blumke’ (my pocket notebook) to work out how much I could realistically include, and then once I had some main lines down, attacked the sketchbook with the two selected collage pieces using PVA glue (cola branca). The beauty of urban collage is the vitality of decision-making and its resulting design, where sketched lines dance with the printed fragments at almost improvised speed.

Alentejo - Alvito

Respondendo ao convite dos Évora Sketchers, fomos ao encontro 78º, onde encontrá-mos um grupo muito coeso e bem disposto.

Vista da janela da Pousada de Alvito.

A Pousada de Alvito, antigo Castelo.

Rua de Alvito, de dentro do carro a chover.

77º Encontro ÉSk I Malagueira, Évora

Desenhos de Cristina Rebocho