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Morocco

Marrakesh answers any artist's desire for exotic sensory experiences. The souk is a vast network of stalls and workshops where Moroccan artistry in leather working, metal smithing, wood carving and such is offered through arduous negotiations with customers. Food stalls featuring fresh dates and nuts jostle with medicine shop emanating incents. Colorful carpets hang from walls and spill onto the alleys, while butchers sell their meat to would be diners who in turn bring them to yet another stall that will cook them, for a fee.

For the traveling artist, it is all about the colors of the local dress, the splendid architecture which has stood as a backdrop for open air diners in the main square for centuries and the wide range of vignettes from daily life. At every corner, at all hours, there is a buzz worthy of a sketch or a full series of paintings.

A first stay in Morocco yielded a rich collection of sketches and paintings from Marrakesh, the Portuguese era port village of Essaouira, the grand city walls at El Jadida, the vibrant market and majestic architecture of Fez. This was but a first trip and my paint brushes are screaming for a chance to return...