Barcelona: Scenic Vintage Monorail Ride...and a Miracle

This is a painted, 'street view' sketch of a vintage monorail ride at a turn-of-the-20th century amusement park on top of Tibidabo Mountain overlooking Barcelona, Spain. I did this drawing as a submission to an on-going project called The Virtual Paintout: a monthly artistic challenge in which participants are given a city to explore and paint using the incredibly cool street view feature of Google Maps.
After much searching and wandering, I honed in on this amusement park with its atypical structures and interesting views. With an artist's eye I circled, looking high and low and back and forth, for a suitable angle from which to base my composition. Little did I know that-through these actions-I was to be the recipient of a random glimpse of auspicious coincidence, revealed to me in the most capricious manner: a million to one chance discovery of a bonafide Christian 'miracle', more obvious than twelve pizza Jesuses, IMHO and with all due respect.

Click on my drawing and you will 'see' what I am referring to:
the figure of Christ descending from the heavens!

Grant you, I have drawn this figure in the sky myself; but those that know me will tell you that I am not prone to chicanery or religious make-believe. When I do a drawing from a photograph, I usually go to great lengths to portray the scene with a modicum of accuracy-at least as much as my skill level will allow.
So...here is the Google Maps image in which this 'miracle' has manifested itself and upon which my rendering is based:

If you would like to see this in Google Maps for yourself, the address is 48 Cami de Vallvidrera al Tibidabo, Barcelona, Espana. In the boundless realm of possibility, there is this one street, one spot, and one direction where this phenomenon exhibits itself and even though I suspect that any miracle begins and ends on this side of the boundless veil...what can I say: I was impressed.
Long live serendipity.

Everyday Matters Challenge #18: Draw the View from the Window of...

This drawing is inspired by a photograph I took out the window of our hotel room in Lucca, Italy when we traveled there in 2005. It continually seems like just yesterday.
Using a set of woodless graphite pencils which are smooth as silk, I transported myself back to that exquisite traveler's moment when one wakes up in yet another new place and gazes out at the crisp scene so full of promise, wondering what's down that path and around that far bend.

Everyday Matters Challenge #69: Draw a Beverage

This is a drawing based on a photo that I took as we were waiting at this famous place in Venice, in a well worn leather upholstered booth, for this bartender to mix and the waiter to serve our anticipated famous beverage. It is one of those places whose history and legend far out-class its current state of overpriced drinks and tourist overrun-(all of whom are apparently seeking the same brush with the ghosts of bygone greatness as we are).
The whole bar area is paneled in a beautiful, deep orange-toned wood, including the art-deco clock. The single room is not very large and the low white-washed beamed ceiling adds to the period ambiance. Hemingway and others passed the time here in expatriate glory back in its heyday.
If you have had the good fortune of visiting the incredibly beautiful city in which this place resides, you might have stumbled across it like we did. The name of this bar is in the drawing itself.