Thanks, Christine. My only motive for painting is pleasure - though if I am hard up earning some money is also an incentive! I spent the summer in Nafplion in the Peloponese (Southern Greece) a few years back living solely on the sale of my paintings. I was quite surprised at how well they sold, really. I had really intended just to have a holiday painting! I was painting in the square - it is an attracive old town - and without my noticing it quite a crowd had gathered behind me watching. Painting is a very social activity. One of the crowd was the Manager of the National Bank, and he asked me if I would do a picture of his Bank to hang in the main banking hall. It's a very ugly building! I had to use considerable imagination to make it look more interesting - but it was quite successful and after that I got a lot of commissions from hotel and restaurant owners! From a financial point of view I was quite happy - and I got some other commissions as well from people who lived abroad and wanted pictures of their villages and so on.
I rememember sitting early one morning on a hill outside the town painting a village opposite for an "ex-patriate Greek" who lived in South Africa, when I heard the news on my portable radio of the Invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein.
I used to paint early in the morning before it got too hot, and then go swimming in the afternoon. An Idyllic life. I stayed on a campsite next to the railway station (narrow gauge) which has a large collection of abandoned engines. Also fascinating.
Here is a picture of Pylos in the Peloponese. It is the harbour near the site of the Battle of Navarino, when a fleet of 25 Allied ships under the command of Admiral Coddrington defeated the entire Turkish and Egyptian Navy (80 ships) in 4 hours, bringing the Greek war of independence to an end (1821-1826) and ensuring the birth of the modern Greek democratic republic. 80 Turkish ships were sunk, no Allied (French, Rusian and British) ships were lost.
John Foss