Pissouri, Cyprus - Watercolour 101

Houses around the Mediterranean are not built for cold weather. They are built for the predominate weather, hot. They are built from cement, with tile floors and no central heating. Luckily Mick and Anne must have spent some winter months here. They have provided heat in every room. The bathroom has a heater and both bedrooms have combination air conditioner/heaters. Without central heating the technique is to just heat the room that I am currently occupying.

Overnight there was a thunderstorm and the wind picked up.

The rain and wind continued all day and the sea kicked up into big white rollers

So; a tour of the bottom floor of the house.

Front door and the stairs up to the living area.

The bathroom has a nice deep bathtub and is the only room I leave the heat on all day (when I am home all day). No-one likes a cold toilet seat!

This bedroom opens onto the front patio area

Both bedrooms have these full wall closets.

This is the room I am sleeping in,

which opens up into a small back courtyard with a clothes line.

I wake up to this every morning.

In the house all day I decided to watch some watercolour lessons on YouTube.

One tutorial suggested practicing taking each tube of paint from its most intense colour to its palest. It was presented as a lesson in transparency. It was useful for me as I now have a colour guide of some of my paints. Before, I was just guessing that, for instance, Raw Sienna was the colour I wanted. In the tutorial they used a #14 round brush so I also used a round brush and practiced brush control. I still prefer either a straight brush or a small pointed brush but most tutorials use a round brush and they must have a reason.

Then I started to paint one of the photos I took on my walk to Pissouri Beach.

The weather forecast is much the same for tomorrow so I will work some more on the painting then. The rest of the week is supposed to be warmer, sunnier and just the occasional shower.