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Thursday, February 20, 2014

"Close to Home", Literally Home by Andrea Barskiy

I finally came around to doing our current house, in Cancún, México! I went all urban sketcher on this. Thank goodness my street is very quiet. It was my first ever time doing this.

Done in my mini drawing sketchbook for pencil, with, obviously, pencil, then inked, then added coloured pencils and at the end, added metallic marker for the "bars". So here's my drawing...


Yes, there's a big metal fence in front. I'd say eighty percent of the houses here are gated. And if you're house is not gated, you need bars on your windows and doors. We're "lucky" (if we can call it that) to have both!

Hope you liked,

Andrea

16 comments:

  1. Lovely house! I don't think I'd like to live behind bars but I imagine that Cancun has advantages that make up for it. I bet it is beautiful.

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    1. It's not as bad as it seems. One gets used to them pretty quickly. It's like this, if you don't have them, you can bet you'll get robbed. Besides, they are not so intrusive. Most places make them fancy or coordinate with the house (which is what we have). So they blend in well and you barely see them after a while. Life is good! :-)

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  2. Bravo, for painting plien air! Nicely done!

    Cancun has always been a vacation dream sort of place in my mind. Years ago I vacationed in Mexico, but I can't remember where it was (a Club Med vacation in the 1970's). Before that in 1960 I visited Mexico for a while and loved the country. Not sure it's as safe today as it was then. Sorry to hear you have to live gated and barred. Hope you are enjoying the beauty of the place. Is this a retirement home for you, or are you from Mexico?

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    1. Lynn, Cancun is one of the safest places to visit in Mexico. Lots of tourists and most people here work in the hotel zone or at some kind of tourist related business. A lot of people speak English, but if they don't they can either understand you or go out of their way to make the communication work. Mexicans here are very nice! As with any other place, don't act so much like a tourist and you won't have any problems! :-)

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  3. Ooh, very nice Andrea. I like the palm tree and its shadow, it really conveys that flat, bright light that I know from California and imagine that Mexico has too. Ditto Lynn's curiosity - what brings you to Mexico?

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    1. Thanks Margaret. The bright light here is blinding (?spelling)! You need sunglasses! :-p As for the reason I'm here, well, to make a long story short, hubby is Russian and when we wanted to go to Canada to live for good, well, Canada didn't want my hubby. So, while we were in Ecuador (spend 4 months there and had to leave because they didn't renew our visas) we were looking for a place to live until we figured out what we wanted to do. I suggested Cancun (out of pure selfishness, I really wanted to come here). And, well, once here, we had 6 months to think things through. After 5 months, we hadn't any research done on where to go next so we decided to try a temporary resident visa that would give us an extra year to figure stuff out... Fingers crossed, we went through the immigration process and were granted our first official "rentista - No trabajo" visas for a year. Since it was pretty straight forward, and we love it here, we decided to stay for good, as long as the Mexicans will have us. We've gone through our first renewal last fall and we're still covered for another year (they want us to stay! :)

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  4. Lovely drawing. Our son had a holiday in Cancun a couple of years ago, he enjoyed it there.

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  5. Your house looks wonderful and such a great sketch. Happy PPF, Annette x

    http://nettysartadventures.blogspot.co.uk/

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  6. Wonderful sketch...looks like a very nice area!

    Hugs Giggles

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  7. Lovely house from the outside with the terra cotta tiles and the palm tree. I'm feeling the warmth. I hope you take us inside too!!

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    1. Joan, I'll try to sketch the inside, though I'm not good at multi-perspective views.. but I'll try! :)

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  8. Thank you everyone for the wonderful comments! I'm feeling the love and it gives me courage to continue on. As for most of us, I'm my worst critique and it's hard for me to post my stuff as I always feel it's childish looking. Thank you SO MUCH for your support. It's much appreciated.

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