Boat Drinks
This painting is celebrates the person who makes something from nothing. The creators, visionaries and the courageous.What we love about travel is digging in and discovering the local hidden gems off the beaten path. After driving 30 minutes on perilous dirt road switchbacks 300 feet above the sea ( with no guard rails ) we rounded the last bend and descended slowly to a small cove called Limnionas. It was one of the beaches listed on the tiny Island of Kythira, Greece. This trip we were determined to visit as many beaches as we could find on the island. Kythira is the island my wife's family was from. It's not on a big tour list, cruise ships don't stop there but we spent a couple weeks there seeing the details , the gems of what make travel so exciting.
At the bottom of the hill, overlooking the sea was this wonderful impromtu bar thta served cold drinks and food items. The creator of this remote outpost had cut open an old VW bus and built a bar space where he mixed margaritas, served cold Fix and Mythos Beer, chips and cooked hot dogs for any visitor. There was not enough development to have electricity so he ran a thick cable 300 feet up the mountain to a generator that supplied power to his fridge and grill. Wow . I didn't recognize how special the moment was at the time, you usually don't when it's the little things, the moments you make doing something new discovering a new place. In retrospect , I was blown away at the amount of effort this business owner went to making the space a destination in the middle of nowhere. Jimmy Buffett was a world traveler too and wrote songs about places like this . The catamaran moored just off shore made naming this painting quite easy.
I wanted to use a lot of color and excitement to capture the exceptional joy of this place in the middle of a dry mountainous coastline with vivid blue water. The other thing I recall was it wasn't until the 8th or 9th day that I saw my first cloud in Greece. The sky was surreal deep blue and the water was even richer. It is no wonder blue is in the Greek flag. I pushed the vivid colors and high contrast areas deep under the palm shade roof so it would draw your eye and imagination under the cover and into the cafe space. The shade is an invitation to come in and have a little treat, away from the sun.