Sketching By The Sea: A Week In Gozo, Malta

It’s the end of July and I am in Gozo on my summer holiday. Gozo is an island northwest of Malta. I am here with my husband Marcel and our three adult children, aged 24, 22 and 20. It’s very nice that our three kids still want to come away with us.

I am switching off for the week. I may not even sketch. Sketching means bringing my SketchPocket everywhere with me, including while I swim, and leaving it unguarded by the sea; I only have my beautiful cactus leather sample a few days, and I love it too much to lose it. Then my son Paddy, who has been bitten by the sketching bug, sets the tone somewhat and wants to sketch, so I decide to jump into sketching with abandon and enjoy.

Xlendi

Xlendi, on the south west coast of Gozo. I am on holiday, and I don’t have much to say, because I am doing very little of note. So what can I tell you? Here are a few impressions…

Straight off the quayside into deep water, and out again via one of the many ladders lining the rocks. Snorkel and face mask. Turquoise water that envelopes and caresses but is never too warm. Spending so long in the water that I frequently feel as if I have been pickled.

Duck-diving as deep as I can go before my eardrums object. Tiny black fish. Navy ones. Colourful ones.

At the surface, all along the length of the string barrier keeping bathers from boats: brown bodies bobbing. Ladies in huge sunglasses and sun hats…bobbing in a circle, gossiping, their hair never getting wet. Gentlemen in hats and sunglasses, bobbing. Also gossiping in pairs, sometimes joining in the ladies’ circles, no hair to get wet.

Children bombing into the water from the diving platfrom. Curled up into balls, arms and legs tucked. Teenagers swan diving in. Girls in bikinis cutting the surface of the water, entering streamlined, straight and stiff like knives. Paddy and Liv hurtling into the water from the diving platform. Me trying to be brave but failing, retreating from the edge, my fear of heights getting the better of me. Back into the sea, then out and onto a stone bench by the water’s edge, my sun hat and book shielding me from the ferocious sun.

The Terrazzo. Leaving our guesthouse, we walk downhill and come to the Terrazzo within five minutes. Built all down the side of the cliff, ending just before the walkway running along the water’s edge. Top level is for formal dining, next has high stools and is for drinking and tapas, lowest has comfy chairs and is for lounging with cocktails and watching the sunset. Young Maltese waiters. Paddy and I sketch side by side. We draw our empty coffee cups. I give him a few tips and he picks it up fast. A young waiter with dark hair and blue eyes comes to pick up our empty glasses, looks at what we’ve done. He compliments us both, but then I notice that he cannot take his eyes off Paddy’s sketch: at first I’m wondering what Paddy’s sketch has that mine doesn’t, then I realise it’s because the young waiter sees himself in Paddy (they’re close in age). Me? I am a middle-aged lady, and I may as well be a creature from the Blue Lagoon for all the young man feels he has in common with me. But Paddy – well, he’s living proof that he, the waiter, can make art too, if he makes the effort.

I find this very beautiful. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I love to see a spark of artistic ambition in the waiter.

There are two pools in the guesthouse where we are staying. Three, if you count the baby pool. In the first pool, there are faded terracotta pots of drought-tolerant plants dotted around the perimeter. It is not an immaculate pool area with a staff of gardeners to keep everything clipped and immaculate: no, it is more like the pool of those cousins you have that the mum of the family has made cosy and relaxing to be in. The cicadas’ song is surround-sound, exotic, wonderful. There are lizards running around: if they are feeling at home, then I can too.

The second pool is small and is overlooked by a few balconies, including that of our two younger kids, Liv and Paddy, who are always happy to share. I draw the cacti that grow near the edge, just before the property boundary. It is the same cactus that my SketchPockets are made from, and is covered in fruit, which the Maltese make into bajtra, or prickly pear liqueur.

Here’s the pool in the sun. What you can’t see is the barbecue in the corner for the guests’ use.

Back to the Terrazzo. Paddy has asked for a tutorial in coffee cup sketching: we sketch our respective cups simultaneously, and I explain how ellipses and values and shadows work (but above all emphasising that he must look). His sketch is beautiful.

Trying bajtra spritz. Deep magenta pink trickles down from the slice of dried prickly pear that decorates the cocktail. I paint the magenta colour. The drink is strong and I finish the sketch feeling the alcohol hitting my limbs. After I am done, back down to the water. I swim a little tipsy. It is heaven. Tipsiness, sun, heat, cold, colour, water, salt: the senses are on full throttle.

Later on, I see that I have allowed the sun to get the better of me. A big hat and a wide scarf draped across my body have proved inadequate: I have missed a side of my torso – my sirloin if I were a beef chart – and it is sore, sore, sore. No longer do I have the right to point and snigger under my breath at other pink people, if I had it at all: I am as much of a fool as they. I feel very embarrassed and for the rest of the holiday I slip a vest on top of my bikini when I swim, partly to hide my lobster-pink shame and partly so that my sirloin remains medium-rare and not well done. Luckily my vest is sunshine yellow so it tones with my bikini, whose pattern is of orange oranges and blue leaves. At a stretch, the yellow vest could be a style choice…no, no one is fooled. If they are even looking, which they are not, as most people do not point and snigger at others.

Because I have my SketchPocket at my side much of the time, I am able to capture spontaneous moments in ink and watercolour. This is my youngest, Liv, on her balcony. She is wearing lobster slides, which she has borrowed from her brother. I have forgotten to paint her toes on her left foot, and to include the shadow creeping along the floor before it hits the wall. I will fix both of those things. Liv is listening to music and I want to sing too.

Every day I watch the crowds of holidaymakers get larger, and every day I feel a strong desire to draw them ALL in the sea, splashing, bobbing, diving, gossiping. I particularly want to capture limbs dangling just under the surface, the refraction making them wavy. This sketch is as close as I get.

In this sketch you can see;

• A pedalo, the same one hired (“chartered”) by Liv and Paddy. I tag along. They are both accomplished sailors and I find it very amusing to have this heap of white plastic referred to in sailing terms – port and starboard and so on. I dive off the pedalo into the deep turquoise, and in under the overhanging cliff, where sweet white doves peer down at me through the gloom from their nests in crevices
• Bobbling ladies and gentlemen gossiping
• A baby in a water ring, being spun by its parent
• A mother lying on a lilo, her child lying full-length upon her
• A strong lady with white hair swimming methodically up and down
• A child leaping into the drink from the diving platform
• A speed demon on a jet ski
• White bubbles on the surface telling of scuba divers ten metres below (on our dive we mildly tease an octopus which swims away crossly, a highlight of the week for me)

It is so hot that we are never far from sea or pool: if we’re not by water, we are by cocktail, beer or iced coffee, or by seafood, or fresh pasta. This is exactly what I want in my week’s holiday. Plenty of time for visiting the lovely towns on another occasion.

I hope you have enjoyed visiting Gozo with me. If you would like to see a bit more, and of course my beautiful SketchPocket, here’s a link to my latest YouTube video: https://youtu.be/v84MeVYtQCM

See you next time!