May 20th, 2020. Close to midnight under a bright arctic sun, I am writing on a floating dock in the gorgeous Lofoten islands, in northern Norway, The Covid19 global lockdown found me in this cozy Rorbuer located in Ballstad, a little fishing village. Originally coming for 2 months, I have been ‘stuck’ here for 6 months. Not a big deal, to be honest as I’m now where I always wanted to be: living the arctic dream in a veritable paradise. And because of the pandemic I have been afforded the amazing opportunity to live through three spectacular arctic seasons. Such a great personal moment to come back to the beginning of my story. Art, wildlife, and traveling are my passions.
I was born in Barcelona, 1994, in an architect family: my parents introduced me from a very early age to art: sculpture, photography, painting, music and of course architecture. Visiting modern art exhibitions on weekends was common for me as a kid.
At the same time, we enjoyed a lot being outdoors: trekking, fishing, going to pick up berries and mushrooms… With the influence of my father, I started learning about bird and botanical identification. Taking the learning process of the Latin names as a game, and a challenge. He had some identification guides from Omega editorial, now truly classical, I remember watching all of those drawings over and over, before I knew how to read the text.
Arts was definitely my strength during my school years, but I finally decided to sign up for the scientific branch and join forest engineering in ETSEA, Lleida University. During my university years I fed my wildlife passions by participating in several bird migration campaigns throughout the Iberian Peninsula and Europe. In addition to my scientific interest in bird population and morphologies it was an excuse to intimately experience them in their natural environment.
During my third year of University, I met a professional scientific illustrator, and my sky was opened. The profession unifies art and wildlife, two of the things I am deeply passionate about. It was so perfect I just remember being in his studio and having the feeling that it was everything I ever wanted.
Suddenly realizing that being an engineer was not my goal anymore I packed my stuff, left the University, and scooted back to Barcelona, and applied to the prestigious arts school, l’Escola Massana. Two years later my final project was nominated for the coveted Junceda prize, and one of my works was exhibited in the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, in Italy.
After Barcelona’s arts school I studied at the Edinburgh Royal Botanical Gardens, arguably the Mecca for botanical illustrators with a faculty of the world’s elites. Enthralled with my new artistic world, I backpacked my way over to the great city of London to spend four days in the Natural History Museum and Kew Gardens. During a metro change over, I reluctancy spent two hours walking along the Thames which was more than enough city time for my wildlife-oriented brain.
These past years I have taken every opportunity to attend courses and exhibitions by some of the most talented artists in Europe. With the help of social media, I have enjoyed reaching out to inspiring artists to expand and share knowledge. Some of my top inspiring artists on social media are: Erik Van Ommen, Catherine Hamilton, Deborah Kaspari, Robert Vaughnan and Darren Rees.
People are often surprised at how willing artists are to help, and I am grateful to be part of such a sharing community.
Varied environments, and global experiences provide new understandings.
Five years ago, I was immersed in the absolutism of scientific illustration with the demands for extreme accuracy without space for creativity. I believed that good illustration was predicated on accuracy and realism. Although my delight with detail renderings causes me to still love this type of artistic expression, today I am also thoroughly appreciating the wonderfully varied worlds of wildlife art with all of their styles. It is delightful to view the same subjects through the eyes of different artists. The astonishing interpretations, styles and media continue to open my mind in ways I would not have believed possible.
This realization helped me to stop being so rigid and start daring to work out of my comfortable and easy-going studio at home. By that time, I started my traveling journey. While working in Oryx, a wildlife specialized book shop in Barcelona, I saw a unique opportunity on Facebook to visit and discover Kyrgyzstan: I found myself riding a horse across a vast steppe in Central Asia. For 14 amazing days I experienced the nomad eagle hunters lifestyle including being one of the few tourists allowed to witness the World Nomad Games.
Totally unaware at the time that those two weeks would change my life forever I was enthralled at every moment. My exposure to that extraordinary breadth of physical beauty, traditional art and culture, isolation, and immense spaces inspired me artistically, mentally, and physically.
Back to Barcelona, feeling a bit nomadic and reveling from my new insights about my global home, it was not long before new adventures started beckoning. I started putting every extra penny of my income in my savings account to feed my new ‘experiences addiction’.
Since I was a child, number one on my bucket list was experiencing the aurora borealis or northern lights, so Iceland was my next destination. And of course, Iceland lived up to its reputation for amazing landscapes and wild weather. Fortunately, the weather cooperated. In that occasion I was forced to draw from the van, Iceland at mid-January is not for mediterranean sissies.
After that, crazy to experience the famous variety of life from the rainforest and hopefully see the famous quetzal, and hummingbirds for the first time in my life, I dragged my poor mother on a wildlife expedition through Costa Rica. Wild, humid, hot, and teeming with life, it was completely different from my European life experiences, and so like Kyrgyzstan it was a powerful mind opening experience.
Leaving behind all travel partners: Scotland welcomed me with the biggest gannet colony in Europe at the Bass Rock. The smells, noise, energy and sheer size of the colony were impressive. The people were welcoming and the landscapes enthralling.
Followed by Morocco, Italy, Portugal, and all-around Spain. As you can probably discern, my travels are rooted in wildlife and nature with the intentions of forging new realities and breaking the European lifestyle bubble. I relish experiencing new lights, to finally land totally unexpectedly in Lofoten islands for 6 months, and consequently because of a net of coincidences drove me to spend the next 3 months all around Canary Islands to come back, finally at the beginning of 2021 to Barcelona again, where I am continuing the writing of this article.
Of course, these past frenetic years made me develop a different working method. While traveling I take writing notes and sketches as well as photographs and videos.
I do enjoy a lot, as a totally amateur: wildlife photography and observation so I try to carry my camera and binoculars everywhere I go, also a small sketchbook and a travel watercolor set to take notes of details.
Once back to the studio I develop them as a final work. The biggest challenge for me is finding an interesting composition so I take some time to consider the elements position and playing with the most interesting points of views.
I always try to avoid working from a single picture so usually I take three or four different pictures of the same scene and work from that to create the one I think represents better my memory.
I do enjoy a lot, as a totally amateur: wildlife photography and observation so I try to carry my camera and binoculars everywhere I go, also a small sketchbook and a travel watercolor set to take notes of details.
Once back to the studio I develop them as a final work. The biggest challenge for me is finding an interesting composition so I take some time to consider the elements position and playing with the most interesting points of views.
I always try to avoid working from a single picture so usually I take three or four different pictures of the same scene and work from that to create the one I think represents better my memory.
As the proper control freak I am, I like to work as clean as possible: I like hard graphite, white untouch paper, bright colours and pointing coloured pencils.
I use Saunders Waterford paper for, basically, all the techniques I like. And Schmincke Horadam watercolours on double godets with natural hairbrushes from Winsor and Newton.
My palette has been growing the last years even I always try to keep it as small and simple as I can.
Used to be a watercolor freak, nowadays I am starting using oil paintings, pastels, ink, charcoal, and colored pencils. And I enjoy specially working on Strathmore grey toned paper with black and white ink, I think it is a great and fast exercise to practice lights and shadows.
Today, after collaborating on the illustrations for de European Breeding Bird Atlas (EBBA2) project finally published by Lynx editorial on December I am about to see the publishing of ‘Plumas. Introducción a las especies ibéricas’ (Tundra Ediciones) an Iberian feather identification guide.
Just jumped into a personal project of designing a Bio-bags collection, while exploring new ideas and exciting projects. Fingers are crossed that everything keeps going well although I am happily aware that things are always changing. When one door closes, hopefully another continues to open.
These strange corona virus times are generating new understanding about how I can combine my travel passion with my profession. Just brainstorming right now I don’t have any answers yet. I feel continuously challenged to try new techniques and alternative ways to work. As well as pushing my limits on new experiences, not necessarily far from home, as scuba diving, one of my recently discovered passions.
I am, of course, always planning new adventures including the option of crossing the Atlantic again, feeling extremely lucky to be able to keep allowing myself to follow my sixth sense.