holiday snaps: cold beer

I had hired a bike and cycled at least a few kilometres every day, usually in the heat of the afternoon when the children had taken refuge in the pool.  I wandered the coastal road and lanes around the Albufereta nature reserve, trying to find a way near to the remaining wetland.  In these meanderings, I found a small kite and paddle surf shop staffed by enthusiasts, with a fridge stocked with bottles of Galician lager. 

On one day, I found a path that wound through dried up ponds to a raised observation point and on another, a track past a farm brought me closer to the remaining marsh from a different direction.  The three sketches were each done in an attempt to capture the sparkle of the distant water on a hot day, set against the dry vegetation and distant mountains. 

These are all on cold pressed heavy paper: the top two on the Arches carnet de voyage and the lowest one on the smoother Stillman and Birns beta pad.   For the first, I drew directly in watercolour whereas in the second I constructed the main shapes first in a waterproof fine marker.  Oddly, this allowed me more freedom to use white paper in the composition.  In the last drawing, on a different day, I used the fountain pen and then added a minimum of colour with conte crayon and chalk pastel, mobilising the pigment with clean water.