Oysters and landscapes of France

 On a short visite to France my partner and I were invited to visit a friend for lunch in the charming fishing village of Port de Barques in the Charente Maritime.

 I was very impressed with the Carrelets,  a square net locals use to fish shrimps from small huts on stilts...beautiful.
And nicer but in a different way was the enormous plate of oysters our friend served us for lunch, délicieux, merci ma copine.

 But the oysters you see above are not the ones from my friend but the ones my sister in law got us the  day after. We all drove to Port de la Guittiére  to buy them. Another small village with superb views.

Unspoiled nature in this region along the Atlantique coast.

Sleeping at airports

Lisbon Portraits

Sketches of Lisbon

 Only the tram is missing from the view from my Hotel Borges window and as someone said we were paying for location not even internet connection was free shame on you.

 An open air free concert seen after having dinner with sketchers from all over the world.

The worse of a city, when the wheels take over the place that should belong to walkers, workshop with João Manuel Ramos during the Symposium.

Card players, old and young

 Jardim Principe Real

 card players in the jardim

card players in the train

The Urbansketchers Symposium at Lisbon came and went in a cloud of excitement and sharing. 

Sharing of drawings, tips and tools, find out more here and here.

I needed a quiet day with no people around me just to try and take in all those days were people that loved drawing were together to share their knowledge and skills with other people that loved drawing and were there to share their knowledge and skills. And that's how it went for three full days, there were no better or worse just different ways of looking and documenting the world around.

For that last day in Lisbon I chose the gardens of Principe Real because of its centenary trees. The card players were a happy discovery even if they were reluctant at the beginning to let me sketch them some finally agreed and I didn't sketch the grumpy ones. But when they saw it finished they loved it and thought it was something out of old times.

The funny thing is that the same day in the train taking me to the south a bunch of young Italians sat in the train's bar and started playing cards, they didn't mind at all that I sketched them and they loved the result even if I had to leave it half way as I had reached my station.

Sketching in Lisbon

 Kolovrat 79  a beautiful shop in Principe Real.

Rua do Século

 Old rubber tree at Principe Real

Old pine tree at Principe Real supported by an iron structure.

Mauritanian music for my exhibition in Lisbon

Today I met Chris from Sahelsounds ( a blog you should visit if you like music). He did a sample of musical field recordings that I will play during my exhibition at the Paula Cabral Art Gallery .
See previews post for more details. Opening night friday 8 of July at 7 pm, all welcome !!!
There will be electric guitar music, bird sounds, road sounds, Koranic recitation and people speaking as the musicians play at a wedding. For us who live in Mauritania this music represents the sounds of the country.

Lisbon exhibition, 8th of July, mark your calenders.

Km350

 I've a coming up exhibition in Lisbon at the Paula Cabral Art Gallery. There will be a painter from South Africa, Adrienne Silva and another painter, Jirina Nebesarova from the Czech Republic.

This was the opportunity I was waiting for to start a series about the road leading to Atar (or anywhere else in this desert country that only has four tarmac roads, the one to Atar, North East, the one to Rosso and to the frontier od Senegal that runs South, the "route de l'espoir" the longest with more than 1200 Km towards the East and the Malian border and the most recent the road that was finished in 2005 and that runs from the Northern frontier (Western Sahara) to the South and like all of them has its converging point in Nouakchott the capital - another tarmac road is being built that runs along the river Senegal)

  Mobile antennes just like the roads are opening the country to the rest of the world and vice versa.

 They both allow for more mobility and communication making people less vulnerable. 

In a country as big as Mauritania with a very small population just over 3 million, news about events would arrive always with delay, days, weeks, months? Always making people feel detached of what was happening in the rest of the country. The same for news from relatives or friends living in another area.

Km 75

 For me the most amazing thing about the desert is its immensity and how it makes us conscious of our utter insignificance. 

 This series show the desert seen from the tarmac road that links Nouakchott to Atar, 409 Km.

 The point of view never changes and the places are always deserted of people.

 The sizes are small 20 X 20 cm and 30 X 20 cm worked as diptychs. (since I've been living here the size of my work has adjusted to my means of transporting them, Big if they can be rolled , small if not) 

I want to have music playing on head phones during the exhibition and while looking for Mauritanian music in the net I came across this great blog about Sahel and desert musique where you can even download it and got in touch with Chris that hopefully will help me in choosing local musique that best will convey the greatness of this country that can seem so empty and repetitive to those who cross it in a hurry. 

 If you're in Lisbon please come and visit the exhibition it will be on until the 6th of August. I'm also participating at the second urbansketchers symposium in Lisbon the 21-23rd July registration is open until the 4th of July.

Conference le Printemps Arabes, Pr. Bertrand Badie

For more information on the conference check my post at urbansketchers.org