Capturing Life Through Watercolors

What does a Mexico City native do when he ends up in Sweden during a long, cold winter?

Well, Alfonso Portugal taught himself how to paint with watercolors.

Alfonso is the key accounts manager for Latin America for Winchester, Va.-based Rubbermaid Commercial Products. He lived in Sweden for four years, but currently lives in Winchester.

“When I arrived in Sweden, I experienced the kind of winter I had never had in my life,” says Alfonso. “I spent a lot of time inside the house, and I had to do something because I can’t sit still.”

A friend had watercolor paper and paint, and because he used to draw cartoons, Alfonso decided to try watercolor painting. That was in 1985. He’s been painting ever since.

“I started to teach myself watercolor. Then I bought a book about it, and found out that I was on the right path,” says Alfonso. “It was nice to see that what the book was teaching me I already knew.”

Lately, Alfonso has been exploring oil painting.

“I’m mainly a watercolorist, but I’ve started to work with oil,” he says. “I like to teach myself things, and so far, oil painting is very interesting. But you have to practice a lot.”

Alfonso is inspired by what is around him. He says that when you paint, you look at life differently.

“You might be in an industrial area, which many people think of as dull and boring. For people who don’t paint, it’s a horrible landscape,” he says. “To me, as an artist, I see a variety of shapes, shadows and colors. When you paint, you see lots of shades, images and tones. Trees, for instance, always have countless colors of green.”

Alfonso enjoys painting tropical landscapes, especially palm trees because they give him a sense of calm and quiet.

“I grew up with palm trees, but really started to appreciate that type of landscape and trees when I lived in Sweden,” he says.

Other paintings of landscapes important to him hang in his home.

“I painted a landscape of a scene in Kentucky for my wife, Cynthia, who is from Kentucky, and hung it next to a Mexico City scene I painted. It represents the union of two cultures, which is something I really want my children to see,” says Alfonso.

As for the Virginia landscape, Alfonso has done a few paintings. He is doing a series of paintings of old buildings in Winchester, and of barns in the countryside.

“These things are treasures, and the old barns are disappearing,” he says.

Though he doesn’t paint to make money, Alfonso has had several exhibitions at which his artwork has been sold, both in Sweden and in Mexico.

“Art is a way to get people to react, and it doesn’t matter if the reaction is good or bad,” Alfonso says.

At the same time, art to Alfonso is a way for an artist to express inner thoughts and feelings.

“I would say that for me, painting is therapeutic,” he says. “Imagine how good it is when my wife she sees me walk into a room, and says, ‘Have you been painting?’ She can see it in my face.”