Did your mom and grandma tell you stories about a witch when you were kids? La Kuruta is the witch my grandma used to tell us about when I was a kid. So she represents the stereotype of the old witch from my childhood. I’ve always wanted to portray her, so her she is.

As kids, my sister Susana and I used to listen to my grandmother Leo telling stories about this old witch who lived in the roofs of her home in downtown Madrid. She used to mention her whenever she wanted us to behave, menacing us with things like: “If you’re not good La Kuruta is coming to get you“. It was pretty scary, but not serious because whenever we were good kids my grandma used to give us easter eggs and then say La Kuruta brought them for us. So it was kind of cute to think of this old scary witch who was a sweetheart after all. That’s the way I wanted to portray her.

I can also remember going upstairs in my grandma’s flat and she would show me the window and tell me that La Kuruta lived in the roofs. The flat was in the top and, at night, whenever I heard sound from above I would think it was the witch walking on her tiptoes. Pretty scary!

For the location of this illustration I used a series of pictures of roofs of Madrid, including pictures that my sister sent me of her own flat in Madrid, which used to be our grandparents’. I have always found the views from the rooftops in Madrid very inspiring and I am keeping in mind doing other illustrations featuring the roofs of other cities, such as Paris and London.

Original pencil drawing of La Kuruta

I really don’t know where the character of La Kuruta came from, maybe my grandma made it up as many other things she used to say. I haven’t heard of anybody else talking about this character but is possible that she would also hear it from the local legends in her homeland, in the village of Lendoño in the Basque country. In my illustration, I have tried to portray the witch the way my grandmother would have though of her as a kid, with the mentality of a little girl from a poor family of farmers in a tiny village in the Basque country during the early century. Probably she wouldn’t think of her with the same cultural references that I had as a kid, meaning the classical witch with a hight top hat and a broom. I rather think of the witch as a character inspired by the local nature, so I decided that my grandma would probably portray her like some sort of scary crow or maybe like an old and ugly woman in the village.

Original sketches for La Kuruta

The Basque country is full of mythology and legendary characters similar to her, such as Mari (a witch), Jentilak (giants), and Prakagorri (brownies). I’ve always wanted to do an illustration book to compile all of these characters and is possible that I decide to go for it some day so this illustration will be there. Regarding witches, the Basque country is also a well-known place for witches and akelarres (sabbaths). The most famous legend is the one about the witches in Zugarramurdi, Navarra, related to the trial in 1610 and the burning of 12 women accused of witchcraft. In relation with the subject of witches, I’ve been also working in a very different illustration, not for children, inspired in two witches who actually lived in the area where I live now in north Madrid. I’ll be talking about this sometime soon.

Another book I would like to do sometime where this illustration may fit is a compilation of illustrations of Spanish popular scary characters, meaning those that the parents use to threaten the kids, such as The Man In The Moon and The Boogie Man. Some of the most famous “monsters” in the Spanish culture are El Coco, El Hombre del Saco, El Sacamantecas and El Destripaterrones. Most of these scary characters are not inventions but real killers who became famous in Spain for their horrible actions and got those nicknames. This is very interesting subject related to the popular culture in the villages in Spain, we call this “profound Spain”. I have the feeling that the collective memory in Spain and many of these stories are fading away and that makes me sad. I miss La Kuruta, I miss her chocolate eggs, and I miss my grandma the most!

I found this advertisement for Moog synthesizers in an old issue of the Spanish music magazine “Popular-1″, from April 1973. Sadly, in those days these kind of instruments were really expensive for most of the Spanish groups and it was usual that the recording studios would include synthesizers as part of their services. In this ad you can see three of the first models from Moog produced during the 70’s: the infamous Minimoog, Sonic Six and Satellite. I used to own a Moog Prodigy produced in 1979 that could scream like a devil.

Without a doubt one of the most characteristic sounds from my childhood was the synthesizer. Some people may not have notice it’s presence but I can swear it was present in every home during the 70’s: music, cartoons, movies, commercials, radio… Everywhere! It was impossible to scape from it’s sinuous charm. Today, I can swear that it’s sound is always around in my studio and I’m sure it has an influence in my art, as everything else.

These wonderful machines had been working since the 20’s and by 1970 they started being sold for the big public when the first portable synthesizer -the Minimoog- was produced by Robert Moog. However, in Spain this instrument would remain pretty unadvertised. I believe that the first Spanish band to use one was Los Relampagos in 1968, in heir fantastic song “La Danza del Bufón”. Teddy Bautista -keyboardist from Ciclos- has coined the privilege of having been the first Spanish musician to import a synth. But I’m pretty sure that it was used before by Eduardo Polonio. Another Spanish pioneer in the use of synthesizers was Jesús de la Rosa, from the legendary band Triana, and he actually helped to make it’s sound popular in the 70’s.

Here are some of the dearest memories of the synthesizer from my childhood:

• The wonderful collection of sounds created by the genius of Raymond Scott for Warner Bros. Cartoons. Synthesizers and cartoons together. What else can you ask for?
• The robotic verbiage of R2D2 in “Star Wars” created by Ben Burtt with a ARP 2600 synthesizer.
• The musical conversation in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” created by Philip Dodds with an ARP synthesizer.
• The unforgettable radio commercials in the Sunday evening sport shows, using bits from Vangelis and Keith Emerson.
• The beautiful electronic version of Debussy’s “Arabesques” by Tomita (entitled “Snowflakes Are Dancing”) opening the children TV show “El Planeta Imaginario”. This show, by the way, did a great job by inviting children to read books every week.
• The wonderful opening of the TV show “Informe Semanal” by R. Beltran, which sounded quite a lot like “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder.

A pesar del enorme retraso que en España existía, como en casi todo, en 1973 en el resto de Europa y en Estados Unidos los sintetizadores ya formaban parte de las herramientas de trabajo más usadas por los artistas. Hay que tener en cuenta que los primeros prototipos de sintetizador ya habían aparecido en la primera década del siglo 20 y fueron utilizados desde en los años 50 por compositores de música avantñgarde y concreta, tales como Stockhausen y Edgar Varese. Algunos de los artistas pioneros en el uso del sintetizador a finales de los años 60 fueron Walter Carlos, Jean Jacques Perrey, Morton Subotnick, Bruce Haack, y Iannis Xenakis. Por otro lado, en el mundo de la música rock los primeros en utilizarlos fueron The Beatles, Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, Curved Air y The Nice.

Lo cierto es que, aunque éstas maravillosas máquinas ya llevaban danzando desde los años 20, no fue hasta 1970 cuando se extendieron de forma comercial, con la fabricación del primer sintetizador portátil (el Minimoog) a manos de Robert Moog. Sin embargo, en España el sintetizador seguía siendo un gran desconocido. No tengo muchos datos contrastados al respecto pero, si no me equivoco, los primeros en usar uno de éstos aparatos en España fueros Los Relámpagos en 1968, con su fantástico tema “La Danza del Bufón”. A Teddy Bautista, teclista de Ciclos, se le atribuye el galardón de ser el primer músico español en importar un sintetizador (quién te ha visto y quién te ve, Teddy). Sin embargo, me consta que otro de los primeros artistas en utilizar y experimentar con éste tipo de tecnología fue el músico madrileño Eduardo Polonio, que ya en 1969 los utilizaba. Jesús de la Rosa, del fantástico grupo Triana, fue otro de los artistas que más ayudaron a la popularidad del sonido del sintetizador en España en los años 70.

Para finalizar, aquí van algunos de los recuerdos más entrañables de sintetizador de nuestra generación Chiripitifláutica que puedo recordar:

• La maravillosa colección de sonidos creados por el genio Raymond Scott para los dibujos animados de la Warner Bros.
• Ese pedazo de sintetizador analógico que acompañaba aquellas cassettes de villancicos navideños de nuestra infancia en las que cantaban en falsete adultos haciéndose pasar por niños con un resultado cuanto menos inquietante.
• Los sonidos de R2D2 de “La Guerra de las Galaxias” creados por Ben Burtt en un sintetizador ARP 2600.
• El inolvidable soliloquio de la película “Encuentros en la 3a Fase” creado por Philip Dodds con un sintetizador ARP.
• Las inolvidables cuñas en los programas de radio a base extractos del gran maestro de la electrónica, Vangelis.
• La bellísima versión electrónica de “Arabesques” de Debussy a manos de Tomita (titulada “Snowflakes Are Dancing”) que abría la serie de televisión de “El Planeta Imaginario”.
• La formidable cabecera musical del programa “Informe Semanal” de R. Beltran, claramente que recordaba a el clásico “I Feel Love” de Donna Summer y Giorgio Moroder.

As a kid, this collection of stickers was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. Just like every other kid from my generation, I grew up watching the films of Lugosi and Boris Karlof, and The Munsters on the TV. So all these characters were my idols. The appreciation for the concept of the monster still remains in my art and illustration and right now I’m actually preparing a children book about monsters.

I remember I used to spend hours and hours looking at these stickers during the summer. When I recovered the album I would still remember in detail many of the drawings. I remember the very first time I saw the stickers in the kiosk, I was completely fascinated!

The collection was published in Spain in the mid ’70s by Dunkin/Gallina Blanca and it features 84 stickers and a 20 pages album. The envelopes would contain 3 stickers and one strawberry chewing gum for the mark Dunkin. The original price of the album as you can see in the picture was 5 pesetas (about 2 cents of a dollar today). Can you imagine what a kid would do today with that amount of money?

Although I’m not a collectionist, I had the opportunity of recovering this collection a few years ago. The stickers were in the envelopes and the album was completely untouched, so it was really thrilling for me get it completed. As a kid I never got to finish this collection but I was obsessed with it. I think it didn’t get very popular and it was not easy to find other kids to trade stickers. So when I got this full collection Naomi handed me the envelopes little by little and it took several months to get the whole album completed. It was really fun and exciting. I was also able to get the original promotional box that contained the albums in the shops. What else could I ask for?

I think the idea for this collection is just great, a combination of humor and monsters in a contemporary style from the 70’s in a hippy fashion. It’s a shame that the album doesn’t give any credit to the artist who did the illustrations because I think it’s such an impressive work! This is something that would happen very often in Spain during the 60’s and 70’s: children illustrators didn’t get any credit of their work, they were invisible people, like if the drawings were made by nobody.

I keep thinking about doing a revision of this collection in a similar style, something contemporary, but at the same time I wonder if the kids today really know who the hell are Mr. Hyde and the Mummy.

Esta colección de cromos la editó Dunkin/Gallina Blanca a mediados de los 70 y consta de 84 cromos adhesivos y un álbum de 20 páginas. En la parte posterior de la cubierta se incluía publicidad sobre algunos de los productos asociados a las marcas Dunkin y Gallina Blanca (PicaPica, Chimos, Loquitos, Stick). El precio de original del álbum era de 5 pts. áFiguraos lo que harían ahora los niños con 5 céntimos de euro! Los sobres contenían 3 cromos y un chicle Dunkin de fresa, siempre de fresa.

Aunque yo no soy coleccionista, tuve la suerte de poder recuperar ésta colección hace unos años. Además, la conseguí con los cromos sin pegar y el álbum intacto, y me hizo una ilusión tremenda, entre otras cosas porque jamás logré terminar ésta colección en su momento. Si no recuerdo mal, no fue muy popular y resultaba difícil encontrar a otros niños que la hicieran para poder cambiar cromos. Así que mi mujer me distribuyó los cromos en sus sobres poco a poco y tardamos varios meses en terminar el álbum. Fue realmente divertido y muy emocionante. Además también pude hacerme con la caja promocional que contenía los álbumes en las tiendas.

De pequeño yo estaba obsesionado con ésta colección, era una de las cosas más alucinantes que había visto. Como todos los niños de mi generación, crecí viendo las películas de Bela Lugosi y Boris Karloff, y Los Munsters en la tele, así que éstos personajes eran mis ídolos. La idea de la colección me parece genial, esa combinación humorística entre los monstruos y el estilo contemporáneo y medio-hippy de los 70. Es una pena que en el álbum no se haga referencia al artista que dibujo las ilustraciones porque son un trabajo impresionante. Yo, que me dedico profesionalmente a la ilustración, he pensado más de una vez en dibujar una versión actualizada de ésta colección. ¡Lástima que nadie lo editaría! Más que nada porque hoy día los niños ya no saben quienes son Mr. Hyde ni La Momia, y al fin y al cabo ya casi no quedan colecciones de cromos.

Recuerdo que me tiraba las horas muertas mirando estos cromos, si no recuerdo mal durante el verano. Tanto es así que cuando recuperé la colección recordaba con todo lujo de detalle algunos de los dibujos. Me acuerdo que la primera vez que vi en el quiosco los sobres quedé totalmente fascinado. Además, ésta debió ser una de las primeras colecciones de cromos en pegatina que apareció en España. ¡Una chulada!

Por cierto, que como podéis ver en la foto el álbum venía con toda una promoción de productos, de los cuales seguro que os acordáis. Yo me acuerdo muy bien de Loquitos y de los polvos Pica-pica que venían en su botellita de plástico.

Kalkitos appeared in Spain in 1979, bringing a touch of modernity to our childhood. Before Kalkitos there were nothing but stickers. In fact, at the time we would still place most of the stickers in the albums with glue. I remember when I first saw Kalkitos in the TV commercials, it was a revolution for Spanish kids!

The best about Kalkitos was to have the freedom to transfer the figures in the panoramic landscapes. It was a really educational game that would help the children develop their perspective skills and also very fun. Most of the results were pretty surrealist, to say something, when the biggest figures would be placed in the background of the landscapes. It would be very interesting today to see a collection of old Kalkitos made by us as kids to have a good laugh!

There where quite a lot of different collections of Kalkitos released. I mostly remember the early ones: the Western and the First World War. They later released other collections, like historical, sports, Felix Rodriguez de La Fuente, and I can especially remember the Hanna-Barbera ones with Yogi, The Flintstones and Huckle Berry Hound.

In my own case, it’s a paradox that Kalkitos was the threshold of my first job as a designer in the late 80’s because I had to spend hours transferring Letraset sheets at the studio. You may have use the same kind of dry transfer sheets with typography letters for the school papers. So we would use the same kind of letter sheets at the studio, just with bigger sheets containing lots of fonts. To transfer, we would use a special tool called stylus.

We used to work with screens with fluorescent tubes placed under the drawing board, just the same as the cartoon drawers, in order to trace. The thing about these boards was that during the summer, when the temperatures would rise in Spain and the studio would slowly become the closest thing to a nudist beach but without sexy girls. Then the screens would get hot as hell and the stellar moment was announced by some designer screaming like a wolf when he would carelessly put his arm on the frying board. This was always followed by the fall of several ink pots in a row along the table, just like in a domino effect, which was finally crowned by long string of bad words.

I also remember that we used to buy Letraset boxed in the central offices at Calle Mayor in Madrid, the palace of fonts, where you could find thousands of typographies. At the studio where I used to work at the time, we were always lacking typography sheets. We would always run out of “A” and “S” letters, so we ended up developing a sophisticated technique to create Frankenstein letters from parts of others. As a designer today, I don’t miss at all those days when typing a simple name would take five minutes. Today, we can do the same in just 3 seconds and defect-free! But I really do miss those Kalkitos and their funny disproportions.

Los Kalkitos aparecieron en 1979 trayendo un verdadero soplo de modernidad a nuestras infancias. Y es que antes de los Kalkitos lo œnico que se conocía era la pegatina pura y dura. De hecho, aœn pegábamos la mayoría de los cromos con pegamento Imedio. Me acuerdo que los anunciaron en la tele y fue toda una revolución. ¡Los Kalkitos rompieron con la pana!

Lo más atractivo de los Kalkitos era el tener la libertad de transferir las figuras a placer sobre los paisajes panorámicos. Era un juego muy didáctico que, además de resultar lœdico por el hecho de tener que transferir las figuras con un lápiz, ayudaba a desarrollar el sentido de la perspectiva en los niños. Muchos de los resultados, a pesar de todo, resultaban bastante surrealistas cuando colocábamos las figuras más grandes al fondo del paisaje. Esto siempre me ha recordado a una extraña costumbre española: la de montar belenes de Navidad con figuras de diferente estilo y tamaño en combinaciones desproporcionadas. ÀPorqué los Reyes Magos siempre resultan gigantones? Mi madre en concreto tiene un belén en el cual la Virgen y San José son algo así como cuatro veces más grandes que el buey y la vaca. Vamos, que los pobres animales parecen caniches. Pues lo mismo pasaba con los Kalkitos. ¡Qué interesante sería hoy día poder ver una colección de Kalkitos usados para reírse un rato con las desproporciones!

De los Kalkitos se editaron un montón de colecciones diferentes. Las que yo recuerdo mejor son las de el principio: La Conquista del Oeste y La Primera Guerra Mundial. Luego fueron apareciendo colecciones históricas, de fœtbol, una de Felix Rodriguez de La Fuente, y recuerdo con fascinación las de personajes de Hanna-Barbera, en concreto recuerdo a Yogui, Los Picapiedra, y Huckle Berry Hound.
En mi caso, lo paradójico de los Kalkitos es que fue la antesala de mi primer oficio de diseñador, a finales de los años 80, ya que me pasaba las horas muertas transfiriendo hojas de Letraset en el estudio de diseño. Todos os acordaréis de las hojas de letras de Letraset que utilizábamos para los trabajos importantes del cole. Pues bien, en el estudio de diseño utilizábamos exactamente esa misma técnica, sólo que con hojas más grandes con mayor cantidad de tipos. Solíamos trabajar con pantallas translœcidas que tenían luces fluorescentes instaladas bajo el tablero de dibujo, para poder calcar con facilidad. Muy chulo. Lo malo es que en verano, cuando subían las temperaturas, el estudio se iba convirtiendo poco a poco en algo parecido a una playa nudista, pero sin chicas. Y es que las pantallas se calentaban como demonios. El termómetro marcaba el tope cuando uno de los diseñadores soltaba un alarido al poner los brazos por descuido sobre el tablero incandescente. Esto solía venir acompañado de la caída de una ristra de tinteros a lo largo de la mesa, siempre en efecto dominó y precediendo a una larga reta-hila de improperios variados.

Solíamos comprar cajas de Letraset en las oficinas centrales de la Calle Mayor de Madrid, y en donde podías encontrar miles de tipografías distintas. Recuerdo que en el estudio siempre faltaban las letras “a” y “s”, de modo que acabamos desarrollando una “sofisticada” técnica para crear letras haciendo Frankenstein de otras. Para transferirlas no usábamos un lápiz, como en los Kalkitos, ya que recordaréis que a veces rompía los transferibles. Usábamos un instrumento llamado “bruñidor”. Como diseñador no añoro en absoluto los días del Letraset, cuando sólo escribir un nombre podía llevar 30 minutos. Hoy día eso lo hacemos en tan sólo 3 segundos y sin defectos. Sin embargo, sigo echando de menos aquellos Kalkitos y aquellas desproporciones tan simpáticas.

During the building of this web site’s design, which it’s taking a few months of work, I’m using temporarily a template design from an old blog of mine. The header illustration is a humble tribute that I paid this year to the artists that illustrated the children’s books of my childhood. The original blog in Spanish used to be called “Generación Chiripitiflautica”. It was about personal memories from my childhood and it’s name was inspired by a popular children TV show in Spain in the early 70’s called “Los Chiripitiflauticos”.

The figure of the boy is supposed to be myself, wearing a Daniel Boom hat just as I used to when I was four years old, after the popular TV show. I had this Daniel Boom costume that I got for Christmas which included a jacket and a plastic knife. Terrific!

The wall paper is inspired by the same I used to have in my own bedroom during the 70’s, in blue. It’s curious to think about how popular these op art and pop designs invaded every home in the 60’s and 70’s. I still think they were pretty cool.

The image of the castle in the back represents a popular toy in Spain in the 70’s: Exin Castillos. It was a sort of Lego construction of a Gothic castle, with plastic figures. In my painting you can see the figure of the ghost on top of it. A modern version of this same toy is still on sale in Spain and is very popular. In Spain, almost every kid owned one of these amazing castles in the 70’s.

Exin Castillos

In my hands you can see an action figure called Madelman, probably the most beloved toy for kids. This was the very first action figure produced in Spain. The one that I painted I used to love so bad, it was the North Pole expedition.

Madelman

And what about the TV? At the time was in black and white. Most of the Spanish families didn’t have a color TV at least until 1974. In the illustration I’m watching one of the most stereotypical images from my generation: La Familia Telerín. It was a little cartoon that they used to show every evening to send the kids to bed. A very nice cartoon by the way, as you can see in the video.

La Familia Telerín

I have a funny memory about it, by the way. A good friend of my family called Emilio Salas was the owner of a night club in Madrid. It was one of this night clubs with red lights and sexy girls in night gowns serving drinks that became popular in the 70’s. They were called “American bars”. So I was four years old and this particular morning Emilio took me to his club on the way to a football match, I guess he needed to do something important and the thing is that we had to stop by. And when I got in I thought it was the coolest place in the world. There was this tiny DJ booth and he asked me if I wanted to hear some music to keep me amused and then he played for me this single I loved so much of La Familia Telerín singing “Vamos A La Cama” -Let’s go to bed-. And he had the single there because he used to play this children thing every night in order to send the clients home at the closing time!

So, I closed down this blog, “Generación Chiripitiflautica” and translated some of the old articles to English in order to bring them to a new home in this my personal web site. When I started the blog I didn’t have my own web site yet, so now it looks logical to move all the stuff here. I hope you find interesting some of articles about the memories of my childhood and my generation.