Canarian notebook. 56 days under the gaze of the Teide'.

Day 1 - (02 June) I arrived in Tegueste with certain preconceived ideas. I wanted to develop further the ideas that had been born during the quarantine in London. To work from those drawings, maybe incorporate some hints from my experience here, but from the first walk around the house I said to myself: What a landscape! I would have to be blind not to realise that I have thousands of reasons to work with just by looking around. The little apple tree that grows out of the red earth or the mountain that is entwined with the perpetual clouds on the horizon. Also, to savour that uncomfortable tradition of painting outdoors, that the sun, the wind and the outdoors also manifest themselves in the paintings. It has been a long time since I felt the desire to eat up the landscape and its motifs. I want to make the silliest and silliest painting of all. I want to be that cliché painter, the one who paints under the sun and who paints rose bushes and apple trees. The very idea burns my heart! How many greys will that apple tree have? Written by Francisco Rodríguez Residence Tenerife July - August 2020