This adds to my series of paintings echoing Van Gogh. The lark makes an appearance in the scrumbly, swilley sky as brightly dressed visitors head for the field.
In a van Gogh Field
Art
Clochina (Valencia mussels): a special treat
When the local local mussels are in, Valencianos dig in! Called ‘Clóchinas, they are smaller than most of the also excellent mussels we get all year long from Galicia. They can be a bit saltier than the Galician variety, farmed in the fjords of that province, as they grow in saltier water and on the Mediterranean versus the Atlantic Ocean.
Its cultivation started in the late nineteenth century on two rafts in the port of Valencia. Now they are grown farther out as the port has grown. There is a current that keeps the farm waters clean. They hang onto ropes slung from the sides of old barges, similar to how it is done in Galicia.
They are prepared very simply, usually with just some garlic cloves in the steamer, with lemon juice squeezed over the cooked clóchinas. There is no need to add salt.
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Nude On Sofa
Excellent model at my studio
Sophonisba Anguisciola and Livinia Fontana, 16th c. Italian Painters
December 2019
These two women are currently exhibited at El Prado in Madrid, which I attended recently. It is a large collection. Unfortunately they do not allow photos. You can see a few more at their website El Prado expos.
Lavinia Fontana (1552 – 1614) was trained by her father Prospero Fontana of the well known School of Bologna. She worked in Bologna and Rome. She relied on commissions for her income, difficult for anyone, more so for a woman. She was perhaps the first woman to do so. It allowed her to support her agent husband and their eleven children. She painted female nudes, also perhaps a first for women.
She began her commercial practice by painting small devotional paintings on copper. Christ with the Symbols of the Passion (1576 age 24) , is now in the El Paso Museum of Art. By the 1580s she was well known as a portrait painter in Bologna, often developing close friendships with her paying subjects. She moved on to large religious and mythological works where in another likely first she included female nudes.
Pope Clement VIII invited her to Rome in 1603. The family moved with her. She became the portrait painter, painting Pope Paul V among others.
I have written previously of the next painter. See Sophonisba
Hungarian Woman 111
This is based on a portrait of a friend. Despite all the decoration she is still clearly there!
Plaza Redonda in Valencia
“Plaza Redondo in Valencia.” 30 x 40 cm, 11.5 x 16.5′ Watercolor I did several years ago, when I was going round with a group of Spanish watercolor artists. I published a small illustrated book about the Spanish city which you can read for free http://www.garyjkirkpatrick.com/valencia-city-on-the-med/ .
Carmen Stretches Forward
Tubas at the Palau, acrylics
This is another in a series of paintings based on pen and ink drawings done at the Palau de la Musica. There are normally tuba and contrabass sections of these symphonic bands.
In Vincent’s Field
This is after Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with a Lark,” It is the fifth in the series, starring my wife Peg and my friend Vincent.
Trump: The Call Was Perfect. Let me prove it.
