I came across a photo I took some years ago in Cuba and it made me smile. Pulled out my gouache set and took a stab. It turned out too precise, but I’ll try to be looser next time. It was fun anyway.
My Day 3 painting hearkens back to a trip to Havana a few years ago. This striking statue guards the ornate staircase of a decrepit mansion, now serving as home to a dozen families. We trekked up four floors to reach an avant garde ‘paladar’ (privately-owned restaurant permitted by the government in an experiment in capitalism). It was good, but not as memorable as this ‘Decayed Beauty’!
I feel much less comfortable using the ArtRage watercolor brush (and oil painting tools) than I do with chalk, pen, pencil & paint roller. So I’ve been trying to trudge up the learning curve in watercolor. Here are my two most recent efforts:
A flamenco dancer I photographed during our trip to Cuba last Spring:
Dancing in Havana
And a scene from Glen Echo Park, based on a photograph I took a couple of years ago:
Cuddle Up at Glen Echo Park during a Cloudy Sunset
Here’s a blitz through of some other interesting things between Vinales and our downtown Havana Hotel (the Parque Centrale):
— trekking and boating through tunnels underneath the magotes . . .
View from cave mouth toward a nearby magote.
— lovely orchids and landscapes at an orchid conservatory:
Lovely orchids, not rare, as far as I know.
— and a riot of colorful mosaics, inspired by the Spanish artist Antoni Gaudi, and created by and under the supervision of Jose Fuster (often described as ‘the Picasso of the Caribbean’).
Looking down into Fuster’s front yard.
If you want to see more of Fuster’s fanciful creations (now a cottage industry, as they bring so many tourists to his neighborhood), click here.
I made only one painting while sightseeing our way to central Havana. My knees couldn’t take the climb to the top of the orchid preserve, so I sat at the entrance and made this little watercolor of a rusting red wheelbarrow overhung by bright orange flowers.
Red wheelbarrow ‘color-coordinates’ with nearby hanging flowers.
We saw some memorable things on the day we traveled from Vinales to our Havana hotel — especially Hemingway‘s house with its lovely view of Havana. We weren’t able to go inside and had to content ourselves with ogling through the open windows – but there was still plenty to see.
Comfortable living room with mounted trophies . We all agreed that, unlike celebrity homes we often read about, we could see ourselves living in this room.
His simple desk and chair, surrounded by books and mementos.
A stash of books by his john — and note that pickled something or other on the shelf!
His Spanish Civil War uniform, boots, shoes and hats, all as he left them the day he was exiled from Cuba.
Another desk and more of his thousands of books.
The next post will show a few more highlights from our drive to central Havana.