Pissouri, Cyprus - watercolour and Paramali beach

This morning was my second watercolour class with Roz and we were tackling Olive trees.

Although Olive trees were to be the subject what we worked on was where to start and techniques that can be used. This one was wet on wet with 4 different colours being dropped on to a previously wetted area and tipping the paper to make the colours run. Then I used a dry brush to take paint off the areas that I wanted to highlight.

This one started with a more subltle wet on wet and then laying down darker colour and blending it out. Roz encouraged me to "let the water and paint do the work", "use more water" and "don't paint" at this point.

The 2 hours flew by and I know that I will hear Roz' voice in my head when I am painting . She also encouraged me to e-mail her if I have questions or would like feedback on my painting. I drove away and down into the village of Paramali and, on a whim, turned on to a road in the direction of the sea.

You can't see it in this photo, unfortunately, but these vines have little green leaves starting to emerge at the end of the pruned branches.

The road, that turned into a track, ended at a long sand beach

with cliffs at one end,

waves crashing on rocks at the other and

a few

kite boarders.

No restaurant or sunbeds and this is probably why;

It's a sea turtle nesting beach!

I put another couple of hours into one of the tree trunks (the second one above) and finally decided that I had to stop futzing with it.

I will work on the other one and then experiment with the branches and leaves. Roz and I discussed painting the foliage as she had found it particularly difficult and was not pleased with any of her attempts. When she looked for painted Olive trees on the internet it looked as if none of the watercolour artists she found had been able to achieve the fine, silver grey leaves effectively. The best paintings were done in oil or acrylic.
Then I will try do do a painting of a complete Olive tree. I am enjoying the process and it was very helpful to paint with someone for the suggestions, teaching and encouragement.