Texture and Memory – Gorée Island, Senegal (Weekly Challenge #165)

This week, thanks to Sara @ara_watercolor_, we visit one of the most poignant and historically charged locations in the world: Gorée Island, Senegal – a place that speaks through its textures. Every crumbling wall, every rusted bolt, every weathered door is a reminder of the many lives that passed through these spaces.

Focus Point: Texture

This week, I suggest you to notice texture not just as a surface quality, but as a way to tell stories. Think of the rough walls, the chipped doors, the irregular stones that carry the memory of those who walked here long before. The texture is not only as a physical surface quality but as an emotional and visual language. It’s one of the most powerful yet subtle tools in landscape and urban sketching, capable of conveying time, atmosphere, and even memory.

If you haven’t yet, you might also enjoy my new post "Telling Stories Through Texture in Art", where I dive deeper into the types of texture, how to use them effectively, and how artists have harnessed this element across the centuries.

Place of the Week: Gorée Island, Senegal

Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978, Gorée Island holds the memory of centuries of human suffering during the transatlantic slave trade. Its streets, doors, and buildings bear witness to history—layered with emotion and time.

Today, the island is home to around 2,000 people. It has become a vibrant, colorful village with stone paths and bougainvillea climbing over colonial facades. It’s a place of contradictions: joyful color and heavy past. And that complexity is mirrored beautifully in this week’s photo set.

Photo Analysis & Artistic Challenges

Let’s walk through each photo of this week and talk about the artistic opportunity it holds.

Photo 1: Courtyard and Painted Facades

This open courtyard is bathed in warm, diffused light. The surface of the sandy path contrasts the lush plant shadows and the textured stone and painted walls.

Week 165: Gorée Island, Senegal. Photo Credit: @sara_watercolor_

Challenge as a photo:

Observe how different materials respond to light — notice how the sun catches the rough stone compared to the smooth plaster. Can you recreate this tension between natural and human-made surfaces?

Focus Questions:

• Where does your eye land first?

• Which texture tells the strongest part of the story?

Tips:

• Use directional hatching to emphasize stonework.

• Experiment with layering to separate leafy areas from architectural features.

• Try mixing wet and dry techniques (even with pencils or graphite) to distinguish smooth vs. grainy textures.

Photo 2: Long Alley of Shutters and Colonial Houses

This linear composition guides your gaze along the cobbled path, toward the vanishing point. Crumbling plaster walls, layered paint, and the repetitive rhythm of shutters create a tactile feast.

Week 165: Gorée Island, Senegal. Photo Credit: @sara_watercolor_

Challenge as a Photo:

Focus on the surfaces — flaky paint, chipped walls, shadows cast by shutters. The repetition here isn’t boring, it’s harmonious. Each imperfection adds to the place’s authenticity.

Focus Questions:

• What creates depth in this scene?

• How might texture help lead the viewer’s eye?

  
  

Tips:

• Choose the main subject of your painting and make it detailed to bring more attention to its texture.

• Pay attention to shadow edges cast by the shutters — sharp or soft?

Photo 3: Wooden Door Framed by Roots and Crumbling Wall

A wooden door framed by a half-exposed wall and a growing tree. The living merges with the decayed. Brick, plaster, bark, and shadow intertwine.

Week 165: Gorée Island, Senegal. Photo Credit: @sara_watercolor_

Challenge as a Photo:

This is an invitation to slow down. Every inch of this scene has something to explore — the bark, the wall erosion, the creeping plant, the smooth vs. splintered wood. Recreate the tension between stillness and movement, age and life.

Focus Questions:

• What speaks louder: the manmade or the organic?

• What does the contrast between the textures say emotionally?

Tips:

• Use broken lines and shading to show erosion.

• Let your linework become more expressive where natural forms intrude.

Photo 4: “Door of No Return” Framing the Ocean

This is the most emotional photo. This haunting composition needs no words. The contrast of rough stone and dark shadow against the boundless ocean — a window into a cruel past. It’s a doorway, but also a visual threshold.

Week 165: Gorée Island, Senegal. Photo Credit: @sara_watercolor_

Challenge as a Photo:

Don’t just render — interpret. How does shadow deepen the mystery? How can you evoke the coldness of the stone and the softness of the sea beyond? Think about what to show and what to leave ambiguous.

Focus Questions:

• How much detail is too much here?

• Where should texture support emotion, and where might it get in the way?

  
  

Tips:

• Let the negative space (the view) remain clean or minimally touched.

• Focus on contrast and edge variation to show weight vs. openness.

• Try to crop the scene depending on what kind of emotional state you want to bring to your piece.

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Texture gives us more than surface — it gives us soul. In this week’s challenge, the textures are not just visual effects; they are storytellers. The flaking plaster, the exposed stone, the creeping roots — each tells of the passage of time, of people, of resilience.

Let yourself slow down this week. Choose one scene. Focus on what it feels like to touch these surfaces with your eyes. Let your sketching hand be a translator of that sensation. This challenge is an invitation to not just depict — but to remember.

Don’t forget to post your artwork by Thursday, 1 May, 23:59 CET on Instagram and tag

#landscapeartclub165

Looking forward to seeing how you translate Gorée’s textured silence into your own voice!