I recently had the opportunity to travel, draw and teach through Barcelona and Paris – what a great summer plan! : )My first day in Barcelona and the first drawing I made there (above) was of the Casa Batllo by Gaudi, a building I have wanted to see for about 20 years. It looks like a big carnival mask, and the inside of it is absolutely beautiful. I went back with Neil a few days later and toured the inside as well, gorgeous.

(The building to the left of it shown in the drawing above is the Casa Amatller, by Cadalfach. The whole block is composed of different architects, and the people have christened it “Illa de la Discordia”, or Block of Discord. But more on that in another post!)

I also had the opportunity to meet up with Lapin, a French illustrator who lives in Barcelona, the first afternoon I arrived there. We “knew” each other through the blog Urban Sketchers to which we both contribute. We drew together on the Passeig de Gracia and sat by this most famous building by the architect Gaudi. What a wonderful introduction to the city! We walked to some other sites as well until I started to get visibly sleepy from jet lag. At that point Lapin laughed and deposited me on the metro platform, ticket in hand, with directions back to my hotel. What a nice easy going person he is!  He seems very much like his drawings, intelligent and directed for sure. Here is a drawing I made of him that afternoon:

I enjoyed meeting him, and a few days later when Neil arrived he invited us to join him at the “circulo artistico de sant lluc” for a life drawing session. What a place: Miro was a member there and possibly Picasso as well. I hope that some of that Barcelona artistic ju-ju rubs off on me! The building itself is fantastic – you walk into a large inner courtyard and up a grand staircase to the balcony and the drawing studio beyond that. Neil and I had a wonderful time drawing with Lapin and meeting some of his artist friends – such nice people. Everyone we met in Barcelona was lovely and I have many more drawings and stories I want to post, but for now I’ll put a few of the drawings I did in the Miro/Picasso school. (Like how I dropped that in again?) To see Lapin’s account of our visit to Barcelona, read his blog post HERE.