Dreaming of Madrid

A while ago I was asked to participate in an illustration project for Mi Petit Madrid, to create a skyline of Madrid. It has been a few years since I visited so my memories were quite hazy...I remember a very good broad bean and black pudding dish, and a not so good tripe dish. Goya and Velazquez in the Prado wowed me, and of course Picasso's Guernica in the Reine Sofia. The bullfight I saw is still seared on my memory.....but the city, the architecture the skyline I couldn't easily recapture.
I had to look at some holiday snaps and start to rebuild it in my head. Even now I have no sense of the geography of the place, so my interpretation is deliberately a confusing jumble of a city, disorientating and captivating. I wanted to try and include the heat and the bustle of a city laden with history and still forming its identity in the aftermath of Franco. So the colours are bright like the Toreadors costume and I have included some of Madrid's new and controversial architecture. I wanted the image to be shifting and illusive, because to me that is what is so alluring about cities.

If you follow me on twitter or instagram you'll have seen a few snippets of this in progress. Now you can see it in its entirety here. There is also a little interview with me, which will make more sense if you read Spanish! The illustration will be exhibited in Madrid later this year.