Flowers and a Spanish Monastery

Dear Sarah - Day 113 of our daily drawing exchange

April 23, 2025
Hi Nikki,

Busy day, and I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to do anything other than follow another flower tutorial. Except this time, when I finished the pen drawing, I wanted to add some colour. Out came the watercolour brush pens and on went the water, at which time I remembered that I wasn't using watercolour paper and things got a bit mushy. Oh well, it's still a pretty--if not terribly inspired--drawing. Some days are like that.

XO Sarah

Dear Sarah -

I know the feeling! I’ve had paper totally disintegrate when I decided to add watercolour to non-watercolour paper. Agree that your flowers turned out rather well despite any glitches you may have experienced along the way.

I wound up getting lost in a very deep rabbit hole. I was poking around in a box of maps, postcards brochures, and what nots from various trips to Europe and found a little brochure from the Monasterio de Armenteira where we stayed in Spain during our last Camino. The photo on the front was taken from a very strange angle but immediately transported me back.

I decided to tackle a quick drawing without taking my time to actually do some basic measuring and angle assessment. My brain wanted to straighten everything up, but the reference photo was anything but straight (the photographer must have been lying on the cobblestones, shooting upwards, and holding the camera at an angle).

All that said, the balcony and glass doors to the right must have been very close to the room where I spent the night… I think our room was actually a little farther along, not shown in the photo but looking down into the courtyard/entrance of the monastery.

I think I’ll try to do more architectural drawings over the next while as I’d love to be doing some more accurate sketches on the ground when we are in Europe later this year. What was the name of your urban sketching course again? I think I had also found one on Domestika that looked good…

Talk soon!
Nikki