We had a short holiday in Cuba recently, and here are a couple of the typical scenes that I painted in watercolour. Someone came up to me when I was painting and said"Why are you working when you are on holiday?" I replied that I just liked painting. It is also nice to have a painted record of the trip- not just photos. I tend to paint watercolours on holiday, even though I am not that good at them, as it is easier to carry them than heavy tubes of acrylics and canvases.
The flowers in the foreground are Bourgainvilleas whose brilliant colours are everywhere.
Local art for the tourists is not that great, as they appear to be mass produced with the use of a lot of primary colours and way too much "straight from the tube" green. However, I understand that paint and materials are very expensive for the locals to buy, so they probably use the oil paint left over from painting buildings.
Talking of buildings, there were some great murals on the walls of the hotel lobby and bars.
They were mostly semi-abstracts or fantasy paintings. One was a type of "trompe d'oeil" which depicted a staricase leading to no-where. One girl got a little drunk and someone tried to march her up the painted stairs for a joke. She was going along with it until someone pointed out the stairs weren't real!
