Painting in Spain

A Cardiff Artist Retreat

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I travelled from my home city of Cardiff, Wales, to Spain for 9 days in October 2025 to do some art with  friends at a beautiful house in the mountains near Albox. Joined by Mari, we drew and painted at Ellen’s Spanish home situated in a quite awesome environment. The old farmhouse has been lovingly restored and added to over the years to include a swimming pool and art studio. The house is in a hamlet, just near a local town, tucked away and access to it is either over a dry riverbed, or Ramblas, that can suddenly turn into a raging river if there’s a heavy downpour, or by a winding road with dangerous curves and hidden bends. Ellen preferred to drive over the riverbed shortcut, even with a shaking suspension! The house has a grand view of the mountains, where eagles soared overhead.  The weather was just perfect, 30°.

I am not that familiar with Spain, so it was a real treat to be in this Mediterranean landscape, in contrast to the lush green and wet of Wales! I loved the pomegranate trees, the cacti and the light, it felt so rejuvenating. We started off on some art in the front garden that looked out over the mountains, using brushes and ink to create impressions of the landscape in black-and-white, describing the shapes of the Spanish trees in the foreground.   

The tree by the house is a pine nut tree, which housed a Spotless Starling, an amazing bird which imitates other bird calls. As we drew views from the house, we slipped tea in quiet and peace, absorbed into our own creativity. It was so beneficial for all of us to have space be creative and to encourage each other. Ellen and Mari are both ex art teachers and were getting back into producing art after years of fostering creativity in others.  

I love painting outdoors and we scrambled up the side of a hill, following the footprints and animal tracks of the local wild boar, to find a suitable spot in which to do our artwork. Working plein-air for me means there are fewer distractions. You get into the zone more easily, just responding to what’s in front of you, working through the constant light changes. In Spain there is more steady blue sky and warm light than the rapidly moving weather in Wales. You could see the shadows of the Spanish mountains lengthening and darkening in response to the position of the sun, gliding its way steadily across the azure sky. As the colours changed with the light, deep ambers, oranges, browns of the mountains were revealed that were reminiscent of resting human bodies, lying on their sides, … like soft sandheaps rolling into the distance.  Working in either watercolour, brush and ink or pencil we were capturing shapes, weather, and colour then taking that back to the studio to work on later ,or using these studies as final pieces.  

Ellen also hired a local lady called Natalie who posed with great poise, as we threw ourselves into life drawing in the art studio, with its tall walls and light filtering through the windows and doors, we were absorbed in working from life. I used watercolour again, on a large sheet of paper, with green to start with, and built up the life drawing with bold colours of magenta, orangesand blues. Again, just getting into the zone with the challenge of depicting the human body, getting a sense of the pose, weight and immediacy of the model.  

In the evenings when the light had gone, we worked on completing our paintings in the studio. I was fascinated by the pool area and worked on an acrylic painting in which I aimed to capture  light and colour, the shapes of the Spanish architecture and the hills behind that sang with the clucking of wild Partridge’s and trill of insects, as eagles flew above the soft foliage. 

I was challenged by the paints I was using, as I borrowed Ellen’s acrylics ( I only had an under the seat bag allowance on my flight, so I didn’t have room to bring my usual Liquitex paints).

I moaned on about not having the right paints, (what are artists like!)… and not having enough light in the evening to see the colours. I specifically couldn’t get the shape and colour of the small blue ‘cave’ it, where the sun beds were kept. Ellen even dug out the original outdoor paint that was used to paint the cave, which I put directly on my canvas, but even then I wasn’t sure…  The painting for me is a semi success, and not quite finished but had to leave it in Spain as I didn’t have room to bring it home in my under seat bag! Hopefully I’ll return with a bigger bag allowance and complete the painting!  

At the end of the 9 days we had an impromptu grand ‘opening’ in the studio of all our artwork!.. we hung our work with masking tape and blue tac around the art studio and opened a bottle or two of wine and some nibbles. It was so nourishing to work together and in such an amazing landscape and to be concentrate on our art, without all the distractions of normal daily life!