Lost en route
During a motorcycle trip about three years ago with two friends we decided to reunite in a small village called Adanero in the middle of Spain before taking a complicated detour to ensure that none of us would take the wrong direction. Two of us arrived there and the photograph that I show here was taken while we waited for the third rider (he never appeared!). The population of Adanero has been declining for over a century to about 150 inhabitants. We did not see more than three or four people, a number of the houses were closed and unattended and some were even in ruins. I was invaded by a feeling of solitude and desolation, so I have generated this painting taking just the church out of its context and putting it in the middle of nowhere (not far from the truth) to transmit a feeling of loneliness. I tried several versions on pencil and watercolour sketches before choosing this one.
W&N colours on Arches 300 g/m2 (14 x 23 cm)
The following are the original photograph and a sketch
Howard, thank you for your comments. They are a discovery to me.
The church was indeed deserted, you can see on the photograph that the door was sealed but I decided to ignore that. The red tree was darker in real life (I think it was a maple) but I am satisfied with the end result (some earlier versions that I tried looked more like cherries rather than trees). As to the sky, it is one of the main reasons why my paintings so far fail (this one is reasonable I think), but I keep trying.
I appreciate your input.