got that cat scratch fever

an interesting note about the wildlife of the alhambra and merida's roman ruins. lots of kitties.... i mean every 10 there's some cats hanging out somewhere.

the cats at the alhambra now how to play the tourists... they come by look cute and get people to throw them food.... their savvy. 

this includes the cat that was temporarily adopted by the studio as we were sketching and it came by and hung out with us for about an hour or 2..... his name is tinny tim.

on the flip side there are the cats of merida that form clans and populate the roman temple of diana. these cats are hardcore street warriors.

but enough about cats... this is about rats with wings.

i dove southern spain

so it is one day back from madrid, merida and andalusia. lots of pigeons to document, especially their love of the islamic architecture. But we shall start in madrid's plaza meyor. kind of a standard photo but it is reminiscent of the pigeon gangs of placa catalunya in barcelona.

next we discover that the floral decoration of islamic architecture makes pigeons feel right at home.

now onto the surreal nature of the great mosque of cordoba. this masterpiece housed a slew of doves, almost a divine intervention in the court of oranges.

and to leave with... pigeons chilling on a renaissance building with the hulk of a cathedral in granada in the background

don't end up on the six o'clock news

its pigeon time

spent the past 2 sketching classes at the cccb and then placa del sol during a guest appearance by studio. the cccb had a little pigeon ledge that went down to the entrance of the exhibit.

placa del sol on the other hand...well luckily i had cisco there with me.

 we were starting our next studio exercise by analyzing the placa. well im taking some pictures of pigeons and some lady comes over yelling in spanish at me. so i give here the dear in headlights look and cisco steps in. he tells her i know only a little spanish, but she continues to yell at me in a language i barley understand. after she left cisco explained that she did not want me taking pictures of her because she was afraid of them ending up on the 6 o'clock news and that if i wanted to take pictures i should go to sagrada familia on montjuic.

To preface the fear of ending up on the news, when we first arrived at the placa some guy asked us where he could find some acid....that guy was hanging around the placa the entire time we were there.

any way good times.

bday tommorow and madrid on saturday

eat the potato

so i have officially found my new favorite place in barcelona, CHUPITOS. the only place that combines alcohol potato chips and tobasco sauce into some kind of delicious concoction.

Anywho, its ugly outside and should be this whole week...yawn.

but at least my bday is friday! and we head out on field trip 1 starting the next day...which is probably going to be a very long saturday.

but yeah spent the last week working on the studio project, which i have finished with plenty of time to spare for the caps and super bowl. Im happy with the project, i like what i did and we'll see what the teachers think tomorrow. F.T. is getting better, im getting back in the grove of doing stuff by hand and i am satisfied with the stuff i have done so far. however i need to lighten up my drawings because some of them are ending up looking cluttered and overwhelming.

as far as pigeons go, we were down at el mar this week and i was searching for a cameo from a friendly seagull , but there was a disturbing absence of seagulls.

however i did find a fish