A walk through Megalochori

Posted in art, Water colour paintings by

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This painting is from a picture I took while walking through a village called Megalochori in Santorini. One is immediately struck by the fact that most of the houses here follow a uniform colour scheme- white washed/ painted walls with doors and window shutters painted in various shades of blue- in keeping with the natural surroundings of clear blue skies and the ocean.

Walking through a street in Megalochori we saw so many beautiful houses, some were white washed and some were painted in earthy shades, usually with great big wooden doors and windows.

The unusual thing about this village is that there are no addresses or house numbers allocated to these houses. Everyone knows everyone in the village and each person’s home is identified by their front door! This means that each home has a front door that is unique to itself in it’s design and colour, and this is how the postman delivers the village’s mail- by identifying the correct door !

Ofcourse it goes without saying that such an unusual system does lead to a fair share of confusion, and so very often the village folk may find their mail has already been opened before it reaches them as it may have accidentally landed in the wrong house first or the mailman himself will have had to open it to check for a name to deliver the mail to! However noone minds this – they feel that minor dearth of privacy is just a small price to pay for living in one of the most beautiful places on earth!

I’d have to agree! 🙂

Postcard from Pondicherry- Watercolour Painting

Posted in art, Water colour paintings by

About a week or so back, when I was doing some cleaning I came across a postcard that I had picked up during a vacation. I’ve made it a sort of habit to collect them wherever I go, something like a souvenir from the place I visit. This postcard was from Pondicherry, a former French colony off the east coast of India, in the state of Tamil Nadu. Pondicherry or ‘Pondy’ as it’s affectionately called is a Union Territory but was formerly occupied by the French, and therefore the French influences here, are still very prevalent, whether it is in the French accented English that is spoken, their cuisine, and even the architecture.

Pondy is a visual treat- with cobbled streets, lots of trees, old colonial style homes with painted wooden doors and balconies burgeoning with bougainvillea and the beautiful street art on various walls painted by local artists.

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So when I came across this postcard, with the many colourful doors of Pondicherry, I thought it would make a nice watercolour painting. I took a couple of liberties with the original picture and added in a few details. I’m pretty happy with the end result so now I’m contemplating doing a painting of windows with balcony flower boxes, and making it a set!

🙂

 

Saxophone Player- Pen & Ink

Posted in art, Pen & Ink by

A couple of months ago, I visited Greece on holiday. Mykonos was one of the places I went to, and one of the sights that stayed with me from this vacation, was that of a musician who played by the side of the road outside my hotel. He would just be standing there playing, his little dog by his feet, and so content to just play for himself and the people walking by on the side walk and the beach.

For me, the beautiful melody of the saxophone coupled with the relaxing sound of waves crashing on the beach and birds chirping is now synonymous with Mykonos because it is the sound I woke up to in the morning and the sound that carried over the entire town and became one with the vibe and atmosphere of the island.

🙂

sax player