June Diary: Looking Back on a Portuguese Spring
8 June 2026
Dear friends,
I am writing this from Cologne – with a backpack ready for a travel to Poland, looking back on the past months in the Algarve.
The contrast between the two places is still settling. Here, the days move differently. The light is softer, and the streets more familiar, and yet part of my attention is still somewhere between the salt pans, the tidal flats, and the ferry routes of the Ria Formosa.
When I arrived in Portugal earlier this year, I had imagined a productive “artist’s residency” (a self-imposed one): long painting sessions, ambitious plans, and a daily early-morning painting rhytm!
Instead, something else happened.
Portugal slowed me down.
At first I resisted it a little. Then I gradually allowed it.
Many mornings began with a coffee on the rooftop, even before the dogs were awake. Many evenings ended there too, with a glass of wine and the last golden light on the walls and rooftops around me.
In between were long bicycle rides through the salt pans, encounters with flamingos, low tides full of tiny crabs, and countless moments spent simply watching.
I spent more time in the water than I expected. Any opportunity to swim was welcome — in the sea whenever possible, occasionally in a pool, always grateful for the cold Atlantic water. I found myself increasingly drawn to small observations: plants growing through dry soil, flowers along dusty paths, unfamiliar birds whose names I still do not know, boats shifting with the tide.
More than once, I sat down with a book only to discover an hour later that I had not read a single page. My attention had wandered elsewhere — to reflections on the water, to people arriving at the harbour, to a fishing boat passing slowly in the distance. Sometimes I sketched. Sometimes I simply watched.
Looking back, I painted less than I thought I would.
But I observed much more.
Artistically, the season was marked by a few works that felt particularly meaningful. I completed a commissioned painting of the Igreja de São Lourenço, followed by a second piece exploring the landscape and view beyond the church itself. A number of smaller paintings of Tavira also found their way onto the easel.
Perhaps more importantly, these months have left me with a growing archive of impressions, sketches, photographs and visual notes that I suspect will continue to unfold into paintings long after this “self-imposed-residency” itself has ended.
Some of the most memorable moments happened away from the studio.
A journey to Redondo with a stop in Évora led to a weekend spent in a former convent among a group of Portuguese watercolour enthusiasts. I listened to conversations, stories and laughter carried almost entirely in Portuguese — a language that still escapes me often, but which slowly and steadily is finding its way into my ears and, perhaps, eventually into my brain …
Closer to my temporary home, I very much enjoyed crafting and leading Flores do Barrocal and discovering parts of the Algarve’s interior landscape that continue to surprise me. I am already looking forward to the “Midsummer Whites” event: Brancos de Verão – just in few days from now.
With each event completed, Lighthouse Artcourses feels a little less like a project and a little more like a community. What continues to surprise me is how quickly a group of strangers can become connected through the shared practice of observing a place and translating it into paint. Watching those connections form — and often continue long after the workshops themselves have ended — has become one of the most rewarding aspects of this journey.
Also Olhao em Aguarela – despite various challenges and uncertainties along the way, ultimately came together beautifuly. If you would like to follow this part of my Algarve adventure, you can find more at Lighthouse Artcourses.
Some of these months also brought a few unexpected invitations to share the work in conversation, which I accepted with curiosity: the interview with Algarve entdeckt and a feature in the May edition of Algarve Plus Magazine (20 questions).
Returning to Cologne has reminded me of something else as well: how much I value periods of solitude.
After months filled with encounters, conversations, events and movement, I do enjoy a quieter chapter. Now I find myself asking questions: where do I want to settle in the long run? What kind of artistic life am I trying to build? Which observations are merely passing impressions, and which ones deserve to become the foundation for a larger body of work?
I know this much: I hope I never become so detached from life that I stop getting my hands dirty.
Clearer answers are still not there.
Patience remains — as always — part of the process, and also part of my own challenge.
Before taking a longer summer pause, I will return to the Algarve once more — for a few goodbyes, a few familiar places, and perhaps a few final observations to carry back with me.
Summer has always made me slightly nostalgic. Perhaps because it feels both abundant and temporary at the same time.
For now, I am simply grateful for the season that has passed and curious about the one that is beginning.
Warmly,
Graży
P.S. In recent months I have completed several commissioned paintings of houses, gardens, and places of personal meaning. If you have a place you would like preserved in paint, I am happy to hear from you — enquiries are welcome at Atelier GO Algarve.
