Embaise de Alange colours

Description

Sitting out under the Holm Oak we camped under, with the art board and my rather out-of-place office chair, it was an ideal spot to stretch a large piece of Arches watercolour paper and try to capture the textures and soft colours of this part of Extremadura.  I started off with the paper quite wet and let the colours drift into one another rather like the vegetation does here.  The rough texture of the Not pressed paper helped with the distant scrubbiness.  It was just so nice to find the purples of the Sierra Grande de Hornachos in the distance, reds of the bare earth and the soft grey greens of the spikey Retama sphaerocarpas that surrounded me.  Arid lands just seem to suit my palette so much more than higher rainfall areas!  We saw a few vultures, the harriers and listened to the larks around us.