ArtTraveler follows the painter with her blank white canvas in Budapest

"A Painter and Her Blank Canvas"  Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

The icon of the blank canvas appears one of my common narrative themes or metaphors.

'Are painters afraid of a blank canvas?' I once asked on LinkedIn.

When I arrived Budapest on 17 June I was a blank canvas, I wrote two days before leaving, preparing my final blog post written from Hungary.

I saw myself the blank canvas, they (my new friends and colleagues) the pigments, structure, broken colors, brush strokes, composition, impressions, and ultimately, a finished picture of whom I had become after five weeks in Budapest and Szentendre.

On the morning before I flew out of Hungarian air space, there she was with her medium-to-large-format blank and pre-stretched canvas on Tram 6.

She had somehow squeezed on. People make special dispensation for painters and poets in Hungary, a tradition.

We both got off across from Starbucks on Andrasa ut., a main artery of Budapest in District 7 and not far from my Hotel Queen Mary.

As she departed the tram, her blank canvas gripped under her right arm, she looked like a floating rectangle of glistening white.

She was petite, young looking older or older looking younger. I could see only her head and feet above and below the canvas and she walked as one.

I pulled my camera from my canvas bag.

I ended up with this series of four images: "A Painter and Her Blank Canvas."

"A Painter and Her Blank Canvas II" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"A Painter and Her Blank Canvas III" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"A Painter and Her Blank Canvas IV" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish life stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

ArtTraveler´s video: an interview with Scottish illustrator and painter, Gordon Wilson, about his "I Love Fish" exhibition, inspired by a commissioned mural he did 13 years ago for a West Glasgow gangster, who loved supporting writers and artists as well as organized crime.

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.