Santorini

Heat. Not visual — felt through the skin. When white stone becomes so hot that the air above it shimmers, and the only refuge is the shade of bougainvillea hanging overhead like a curtain between you and the sky.

I painted this view on location, sitting on the steps, and the paint dried faster than I could apply it. I had to adapt: work with broad washes, avoid detail, capture the whole sensation. The sea in the background I resolved with one wide wash — indigo flowing into silvery gray — and it turned out exactly as you see it through half-closed eyes shielding from the sun: not sharp, but hazy, dissolved in the heat shimmer. The white walls are left as untouched paper — the brightest light in watercolor is always what you don't touch with the brush.

Sargent once brought dozens of watercolors from the Mediterranean where white works more actively than any pigment. I recalled his approach when composing this piece: two-thirds of the sheet occupied by the pink-purple mass of flowers, while the remaining third — air, water, light — holds the entire work together, preventing it from drowning in color. The bougainvillea is painted in layers: the first wash pale, almost pink, with the deep cherry and violet shadows introduced over the dried surface so the petals wouldn't merge into one mass.

Some places can only be felt — they cannot be retold.