Sketching and painting Vila Joiosa

Sketching VilaJoiosa

So the day arrived,the day to go to the "Vila", the town where my ancestors were born, the town called Vila Joiosa, that means the jewel town' what a great name uh?

It's a coastline little town located in the Mediterranean Sea. A fisherman's town in the beginning, now more focused on tourism.

Once I arrived, just exit the train, I walked a little bit and you find a good postcard view in the bridge that cross the river. Color houses on the both sides, their vertical structure remind me of the typical Ponte Vechio, in Florence, Italy.

Photos in VilaJoiosa

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Walking down from across the old town, I arrived to the beach, there I observed the vastness of the coast that ended in the Harbour.

While you walk, you can observe all the terraces and bars, also, the l

typical local houses. Vila Joiosa it's a town that knew how to preserve the classic culture and fisherman lifestyle of the other past times, his neighbor Benidorm, it's the opposite, a city very orientated to the mass tourism, with extreme buildings in the coastline and all kinds of hotels and ugly apartments. I can't believe that still is one of the most visited places in Spain.

Plein Air sketch

This town, Vila Joiosa, it's beautiful, you can walk it very well and the day I went it happen to be a good weather day.

I sit in a terrace and I ordered a coffee and a cheesecake,, a luxury breakfast for me while I was having a sunbath contemplating the beach and the Mediterranean Sea.

I decided to make a painting this time, the colorful houses kind of trying to ask me to portrait them. So much color and light, the best opportunity to paint.

I pick the watercolor sketchbook and the brushes and I did a plein air painting of that scene,I traced with red lines the basic composition first, then, I started to paint the colors starting with the warm tones and finishing with the cold ones like the blue,

Always trying get to leave white space of the paper for the brightest light, that it's not painted.

Drawing on location

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Later I wanted to do a drawing, because I'm kind of like it more, the art of drawing, still I like to paint too, and I appreciate so much the good painters than know how to simplify in just a few brushstrokes a big landscape

Line art sketch

Drawing it's the opposite , for me it's about capturing all kinds of details ,the shapes of the trees, the building,, the people talking, all of it, in this way, it's just like a visual detailing description of all the scene.

Digital illustration in color

Anyways, I did the drawing of the same landscape, the city hall, with the fountain in the middle.

Coloring process

it was directly painted with black ink wit a Pilot Gtec pen, any felt tip pens are good for this kind of fine lines.

I started from the foreground, the fountain, and continue to the background, drawing one element at a time, and measuring meanwhile I was tracing the lines on the paper,

Watercolor illustration

I colored with watercolors another version. I did trace another lines into a new watercolor paper

Painting process

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When finished, I walked to the famous chocolate factory and museum Valor.

I didn't know exactly where it was located, but it was a coffee shop in the town of the same brand, so I asked the waiter, and he give me the exact location,

There I did a free tour of the factory with more tourist that also wanted to visit.

Sketch of a classic car

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There were explanatory tours each hour Aprox, the lady guide us across the installations, explaining to us how the chocolate was produced and packaged,, very interesting, and at the end the first year gave us different chocolates to try, for eat and drink, and you can also buy some in the shop.

It was amazing.

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Meanwhile all of this happened, I was trying to draw everything that I was seeing,,because the tour it only were 45 minutes long, so I did not have much time to do lots of details, I need to be fast and bold, at the same time, make a cohesive composition with all the different sketches in the same page, even it was different moments and places in reality.

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Ink sketch

ink drawing, black and white.

More expressive composition with lots of elements together, the shadows are fill directly with pen in black or with hatching or texture marks to capture the different materials and objects of the scene,.