Chani's Creative Space

In one month, holidays will be here and a further year will almost be over, I hardly can believe it! This year is a though but an enriching one, I will summarise a bit at the end of December.  Rain finally came this week, not enough, but still. Now the sky is blue again, we could spend the whole weekend outside, listening at the waves and the seagulls in our favourite bay. Whirl

Please do not talk to me about politics today. I do not want to see flags anymore, I do not want to hear more slogans. I let my conscience be my only guide: my hands will keep collecting waste, planting trees, and saving animals.  I love the sand I take with me on hikes and the sea I hear at night when the storm approaches. Sands and water

It is exceptionally hot here, 30 ºC today, November 1st! We desperately need rain and fresher weather (and tranquillity), even if it is fine as it is for restaurants, ice shops, and tourism in general. The last days brought us spectacular sunrises, like this one I could immortalise a couple of days ago. Enjoy!  Short before sunrise in Torremolinos

Finally, we could change our clocks back last night, a little step to return to our natural rhythm, still not being in the right time zone (that would be GMT for Spain, not CET). I sometimes wish I could live in Portugal... It is too early to get excited about Xmas and New Year already, but it is nice to think about the free days we will have in December. I like this time of the year, when anticyclones bring us bright and cool autumn days.  Sleepless Corn field

Time is flying: another half alphabet - Birds - is finished this week at @AnimalAlphabets on Twitter! Here are the first 13 letters. Again, I have been learning a lot painting those birds. I did not know some of them at all!   Here a small collage with letters A to M. My favourites are the Dalmatian Pelican and the Mandarin Duck Enjoy! And - it is still not too late to join if you like: post every Monday evening at 7.30 pm GMT.

Here are four pictures of our second home town el Puerto de Santa Maria ("El Puerto" in short, province of Cadiz, Andalusia, in the very South of Spain), just to show you the atmosphere there. Unfortunately, I cannot let you neither smell the salty air nor feel the wind. I could have spent a whole week walking there in town. Now we have to say good bye until March or April. It was time to update my statement of 2012 (!) for my website on Fine Art America .  My new statement is a bit shorter:  The world with its differences fascinates me. I find inspiration in cactus gardens, on sandy beaches or rocky cliffs, among animals and in old towns in ruins. Abstract paintings and landscape photography are two sides of the same artistic eye that is putting up resistance and often lurks in the twilight.

It is still warm but days get noticeably shorter now. I enjoy most this time of the year, where we generally can visit El Puerto de Santa María again, our "second home" (even if we do not possess anything there) at the Atlantic coast. Evenings there smell like salt, fish, mud; music of violins and guitars accompanies the wind whistling through palm tree leaves. Nights are a mixture of joy and melancholy.  Wind, waves and tide