Behind the Painting: Calle en Ardales

I’ve been climbing for about 15 years now. That’s so hard to believe when I look back on those first few years. The man who introduced me to climbing passed away during a climbing accident not long after he got me hooked. On the day I found out, I went climbing. I still can’t tell you why. I guess I just felt it was the right thing to do.For many years I wanted to go climbing in El Chorro, in the Malaga region of Andalucia. My then girlfriend was studying in Sevilla, so I loaded up the empty bank account with not much more than enough to visit and went. Along the way an old climbing friend from Germany flew south for a visit. We rented a casa in Ardales, one of the next towns over, and proceeded to climb for a few days together. I was woefully out of shape, mostly as a result of focusing so much of my time on art and keeping my head above water, but it was a fantastic few days. We stayed just up to the right of where this painting was inspired from.

I prefer to paint the small things, or the things that most people don’t think about. This street was just a moment in time, which is just like any other moment if you stop and think about it. Calle en Ardales was painted with watercolor on canvas board in 2014.