Smile for me once more
"Teardrops are falling from your Spanish eyes/Please, please don't cry/This is just adios and not goodbye." Lyrics to Blue Spanish Eyes.
Today's Throw Back Thursday isn't going back very far in time...exactly one year ago, we were in Spain. As this post is published, we are once again on the Costa del Sol. This will be our third visit. Each holiday is a little different than the previous one. There are new discoveries to be made, new foods and wine to taste, and of course, sunshine and sea to savour. Adios my friends!
"Smile for me once more". 9 x 12 mixed media portrait (acrylic and oil pastels) in Strathmore Mixed Media Visual Journal.
She ought to smile because I struggled with getting her out from the shadows. At the very end, she was given a "nose job" in order to make her nose more feminine. And now that I am happy because my creative slump is over I think should be happy too!
Enjoying our visit to Seville during Feria de Abril
Inspired by the lovely women of Seville, Andalusia, this portrait was painted after I returned home and started looking at all the photos I had taken during the Feria de Abril, a week of parties that occurs two weeks after Semana Santa.
While we were in this pretty orange blossom filled city, Seville society paraded before us in carriages, on horseback, and on foot.
Everyone was going to Los Remedios, an area next to the Guadalquivir River where we were told by our guide, over one thousand tents were set up for daily singing, dancing, drinking and general partying.
The Festival lasts the entire week and well-to-do families, clubs, businesses, and associations have their own pavillion in an area that is a little less than a square mile. One has to have an invitation to be allowed into one of these pavillions or casetas but there are also public casetas for the general population.
The parties begin early in the afternoon each day and on the day we visited, I took many photos of the beautiful gowns and of the decorated carriages whisking entire families to their casetas which are equiped with a sound system or perhaps live music playing Sevillanas, the music of Seville, as well as a kitchen, and a bar.
These pretty little girls were accompanied by their grandmother to the Feria. This photo is one of my favourite ones taken while we were in Seville.
Entire families such as this one, parade in one carriage after another, during the week of parties held at the Real de la Feria in Seville.
I took many photos such as this one, of the lovely Sevillanas in their beautiful, traditional gowns, and posted them to my Facebook or Instagram pages during our holiday in Spain. (Follow me on either social media site to see this year’s – 2018, photos).
Our second visit to Seville offered us a quite different perspective than the one we had during the somber processions of the Semana Santa in 2014.
This visit was a feast for the eyes.
How lucky were you to be at the right time for this festival Louise, I love your painting of the beautiful Spanish Señorita with the very feminine nose and kissable lips….????
LOL! Thanks Sally!