Edward Borsellino, um visitante especial do nosso blog

 Edward Borsellino é um sketcher americano da Califórnia que gentilmente nos contactou porque descobriu o nosso blog que o fez lembrar das viagens que fez a Portugal entre 1983 e 1996. Foram vários anos em que veio ao nosso país em férias. Fez amigos e ficou com Portugal no coração. 

Actualmente, tem 67 anos e durante 36 anos foi ilustrador arquitectónico e enviou-nos alguns dos desenhos que fez. Edward fez questão de salientar que se tem deliciado com os nossos desenhos.

Como agradecimento, publicamos alguns dos seus desenhos com a descrição original. 

Thank you, Edward!!

#1 Derelict boat at low tide near Comporta
I saw this view from my car and knew I wanted to draw it. I parked and sat down on the wood and dirt bank and started to draw. It wasn't long before I saw movement near where I was sitting but when I looked around I didn't see anything. This kept happening and finally I set down my sketchbook and just kept looking down by my feet and I realised I was sitting on a house of rats, big ones. They kept coming out to see what I was up to so I told the rats  if they left me alone then I would leave them alone. That is what happened and after about four hours or so I finished the sketch, said goodbye to the rats and went on my merry way.

#2 View of church ruin in foreground and church in background, Palmela
I had started a sketch here on one of my holidays but left about 20% unfinished so I thought I  would just try and finish it on another holiday. A year later I had returned and was in the area of Palmela so I went up the hill to work on the unfinished sketch. When I sat down to sketch I realized I wouldn't be able to work on it because it was almost 9am and I was looking directly into the rising sun. So I picked up my sketchbook and walked up an the church ruin, turned my back to the sun and did this view instead. I think this sketch came out better than the other one anyway.

#4Santa Justa Lift, Lisbon
Every time I would see this lift I wanted to sketch it, so finally I made plans to go there, sit at one of the tables in front of one of the many cafes and sketch the lift, sounds simple. I ended up going there on the day after Christmas, the 26th of December and all the cafes and restaurants were closed and no tables or chairs except right under the lift and that is not where I wanted to draw it from. There was however a city bench bolted to the ground, so that is where I sat, I would have prefered to be a little farther away but beggars can't be choosers.

#3 Fishermans Beach, Albufeira
I will say two things about this sketch, first I needed some help with the composition along the bottom edge of the drawing along the sand to help bring your eye around. All the clay pots you see in the bottom of the drawing were actually stacked neatly along the stone break wall that I was sitting on while drawing. I thought they could be useful so on paper only I started drawing them in scattered along the sand and it was exactly what I needed to fix the drawing. The other thing that happened on this sketch was rather strange and unexpected. When the drawing was just about finished a woman came up and was watching me sketch and started talking to me saying she was a retired art teacher (not Portuguese) on holiday and that I was doing the drawing all wrong. At that point I stopped listening to her to concentrate on finishing my sketch so I could get up because I had been sitting on a rock wall for hours. She did not like me ignoring her because that is when she started yelling at me saying "to perfect, to perfect" and "you're doing it all wrong" and then she tried to grab my pen and destroy the drawing. She managed to draw one streak across the paper with the pen before I was able to get my sketch book out of harm's way. I then jumped up (I was much younger then) and told this crazy lady if she didn't get away from me that minute I was going to have her arrested for assault. Nothing like that has ever happened again while out sketching I am happy to say.