Pillory at Jardim das Sete Bicas in Cartoon Lines
2025-06-28
The first sketch of PoSK‘s meetup 135 was this pillory I found right as I got to Jardim das Sete Bicas. After a good chat with everyone, I sat down close to it and started roughing out the drawing.
It has commemorative dates carved into it, the oldest one being 1640… there’s probably a lot of history behind that, the same year as Portugal’s Restoration of Independence. Some of those stories are pretty grim, and probably deserve a lot of reflection these days, even if some people still see that as some kind of golden age for Portugal.
About Jardim das Sete Bicas
The garden, in Senhora da Hora, got its name from a fountain fed by seven springs, which supplied seven separate spouts of water. It’s a quiet spot, the kind of place that’s good for sitting down and drawing without any rush to finish.
Well, the sketch ended up with this pretty cartoonish feel that, later at home, reminded me a lot of some scenes from the Asterix comics, so brilliantly drawn by Uderzo. Might just be a mental note I’m writing down here, but he was actually one of the illustrators who shaped the way I draw to this day. The colors almost look like they came straight off one of his comic book pages. I think that’s what I was trying to say with this one.