Spain Solo Sorolla Plein Air Painting Pilgrimage
Thirteen years ago, I went to Spain with a group of artists and discovered, among many incredible obsessions, the work of Joaquín Sorrolla. It was one of the most inspiring and creative trips of my life. I have always wanted to return to Spain and paint the Segovia Cathedral in plein air with oil paints. However, I never learned to paint in oils in art school. In fact, until November of 2022, I had always painted in watercolor or acrylic. This changed when I found a weekly alla prima classes at Chelsea Classical Studio in New York. By the time October rolled around, I was itching to take that trip!
Traveling Solo
As a middle child of six, with a huge extended family, I have always traveled in groups. Even as an adult, I have always traveled with friends and co-workers. This usually means that I am always going with the crowd and not typically deciding on which activities, hotels, restaurants or events to attend. Given this, it was unfathomable to think of traveling alone to a country where I don’t speak the language or know anyone. As such, I invited every artist friend I thought might enjoy the trip. I even invited my non-artist siblings and friends (gasp!). No takers. I decided that the only thing worse than going alone was not going at all. So, I booked it.
Turns out, I am the best traveling companion I’ve ever had! I pick the best hotels, plan a stellar itinerary of locations and points of interest, wander into the best random encounters and make local friends who give thoughtful advice on great local food and bars. It ended up being a perfect trip. I mean, absolutely perfect! Well, except for when the jacuzzi and my suitcase blew up at 2 AM and I had to get to the airport by 7.
FLASHBACK!
I found myself, at 1 AM, under a mirror ball and black lights for a party of one in what was clearly a room meant for at least a +1. The faucet trickled sub-warmish water into the massive tub. After what seemed like hours, the water level was still too low in the tub to cover the jets. I was freezing and naked in a glass cube rooftop tub. (Surely someone saw this fiasco and posted it to TikTok) I turned on the jets only for lukewarm, tepid water to blast in every direction as I rolled, slipped and sloshed around trying to find the ‘off’ switch. It was a mess to clean up before packing and heading to the airport. Then, the zipper on my suitcase split. It was too early to rush out and buy a new one, so I prayed to the heavenly lord above. With a forceful pull, the zipper slipped back into place, and I was out the door. There would be no sleep or hot water relaxation after all, but at least I was on schedule. Ironically, the “treat yourself” private jacuzzi room I booked for my final night’s stay ended up being the biggest disaster. But even that is a perfectly hilarious story!
Seven Learned Things
Anyway, here are a few things I learned about traveling alone and painting in Plein Air with oils…
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Persistence is key.
When working through mistakes in a painting, it’s best to stick with it and make changes until it begins to work rather than starting over or undoing what you’ve done. Undoing and wiping out can be disruptive to creative flow. Since oil paints are so flexible, a painting can be a fluid performance of deduction, correction and revision. Like a dance, you can keep iterating- changing color, value, temperature, line, edges- until it works. Erasing and scrubbing reverses the mindset and disrupts observation. As my artist friend Joe Weatherly says, “erasing kills drawings dead”. The same can apply to painting. (that said, sometimes a fresh start is necessary to reframe the subject)
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Overcoming challenges is refreshing.
Getting over the challenges of picking up a new medium, stretches the mind to think differently from watercolor or acrylic. Plein air demands that your first strokes carry the story. Painting in fewer, solid shapes of value and color instead of line and layering tones, forces the mind to simplify, making quick and broad decisions.
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Staying with the work and holding the end goal in mind.
I traveled 3,547 miles on a plane, 84 miles by train, 74 miles by taxi and dragged my gear up and around the medieval meandering streets to paint that cathedral! The first day didn’t go as well as I had hoped. I spent a lot of time drawing with the brush. When faced with the possibility of not getting the painting I wanted, I considered switching to a medium I know best. I then realized that I had to try, or I would not have done what I came to do. Ultimately, I ended up with a solid painting and broke the bad habit of defaulting to the known process.
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Tapping into my own intuition.
Usually, I default to the preferences of the company I keep. It’s the middle child tactic of getting along! With no one to default to, I had to rely on my intuition to choose the agenda, hotels, activities, and food. Using my design eye and spidey senses, I found the local vibes and quirky locations that resonated with MY best interests. Hey, better late than never!
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Don’t be a stranger.
Holding space for making local friends who showed me the city as they live it, I met up with a UN Climate collaborator who lives in Madrid. We had a blast together as she showed me around the city she has called home since the same year I had last visited, 2010. We explored the small and local restaurants, wines, tapas and chocolate. She recommended neighborhoods, cathedrals, and parks to sketch. When I asked for the weirdest place in Madrid to visit, she delivered the hilarious Duck Church, which did not disappoint my penchant for the strange and surprising.
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Play for chance.
Finding opportunities to receive gifts from random encounters is a joy. I felt so connected and curious about the culture and history during these random encounters. On a local friend’s recommendation, I stopped to see the Basilica of San Francisco and ended up waiting in line outside without really knowing what the line was for…To my delight, I filled one of the last publicly open seats and was treated to an organ performance premiere under the canopy of one of Europe’s most grand domed cathedrals filled with legendary murals, paintings and sculpture! I’m not particularly religious, but experiences like this do feel like a gift from the divine.
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Paying Attention.
Even in cases of language barriers, the experience of mutual understanding and sharing made me feel connected to culture and community. In one case, an “influencer” taxi driver shared his best practices for growing an audience on Instagram and TikTok through reels and videos. Turns out, his passengers are often unwitting subjects of entertainment, but he opted out of recording my terrible attempts to speak Spanish. Instead, we both fumbled to speak each other’s language to share our creativity. (In hindsight, I narrowly escaped being laughed at by 70.1k followers)
I dubbed my solo trip to Spain the “Solo Sorolla Plein Air Pilgrimage.” The Segovia Cathedral hangs on my wall as a reminder of these lessons, and the very best example of what a solo trip can do for creativity and inspiration. It might just be a trip I’ll take repeatedly for the rest of my life. At the commencement of my funeral, I hope there will be hundreds of Segovia paintings up for bid at the Sotheby’s Garrott Designs Estate Auction in New York City ;P
