The Cantabrian Landscape

                            Friday, 9/10/21, Usil or Mogro Beach

During the fall of 2021, we spent several weeks exploring the coast of Cantabria

and the beaches of Santander.  Each cove had it's own unique character and offered many 

different views, plant life and rock formations to paint. 

The body of water is the Bay of Biscay,  where the Cantabrian Sea is located and is an arm of the 

Atlantic Ocean on the northern coast of Spain. 

The three scenes above are painted from Sardinero Beach in Santander.

 You can see  Mouro Island with it's lighthouse, the only thing on the island.

 I really like this rock formation.

I think it's a metamorphic rock called Schist.  

                            Tuesday, 9/14/21, Usgo Beach with limestone or rudist cliffs. 

                            These cliffs, and reefs, were built by mollusks called rudist clams. 

                     Monday, 10/4/21, view from the coastline below the Cabo Mayor Lighthouse

Thursday, 9/14/21, Usgo Beach

Sunday, 8/29/21, first day's impression of Sardinero from our window

I didn't have my easel with me so these are all small 4" x 8" studies.

Painting these watercolors is my way of learning about a new landscape

and becoming comfortable with my new surroundings. 

THE TREES IN MY CHILDHOOD YARD, or maybe why I've been drawn to paint trees.

I grew up in a house owned by gardeners who were not my parents.

We inherited all the trees in the small front yard, the side yards and the larger backyard.

They needed a lot of care, especially the fruit trees. 

The house was a small Cape Cod cottage. On the right side of the front walk was a large magnolia tree, on the left a dogwood. The house was surrounded by rhododendrons, azaleas and hydrangeas of varying bright colors. 

Around the house to the right were the fruit trees; pears and plums and in the middle of the backyard an impressively large Bing cherry tree. At least that is the way it exists in my childhood memory. This is the tree that I remember most because it bloomed every spring right outside my upstairs bedroom window and when it was warm enough to keep the windows open the smell of the blossoms filled the room. 

There were lilacs against the garage wall. A grape vine clung to an arbor over the walkway that led up to the side door into the kitchen. Lilies of the Valley were a ground cover on both sides of the walkway. 

Growing around the entire property was a tall privet hedge. Every other weekend my father would take out the electric trimmer and prune the hedge. My brother and I would rake up the clipping.s Whenever I see a hedge today I can hear the sound of that trimmer and smell 

the scent of the small leaves of the newly shorn hedge. 

"These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between 

  them, as thought with their growth it too increased." R. M. Rilke

I moved and grew up in the space between these trees and I feel their presence and carry them with me.