San Xavier Mission Church: January 2025
Monterey Motel Café, Cochise County All Star Trio: January 2025
El Rio Reserve, Marana, AZ: February 2025
Italian watercolor on Moleskine sketchbook paper
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Tucson, Arizona
Italian watercolor on Moleskine sketchbook paper
A Winter in New Orleans
Foggy morning in the Garden District: March 2024
Cretacolor aquarelle on Moleskine sketchbook paper.
The Fly (overlooking the mighty Mississippi): May 2024
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Snacking in San Gemini - October 2022
A typical hill town visit includes a visit to a shop that might have a bathroom. That means buying a small caffe or cappuccino. Maybe a little bite to eat as well, like a crostata.
So it seemed reasonable to sketch my little jam tart (the crostata), as well as my cappuccino. And of course the Italian modern spoon, as well as the cup and fun plate.
That little sketch, my little morning slice of Italian life, turned into a full painting in the afternoon.
Aquarelle pencil sketch, watercolor painting.
Stroncone, Italia - October 2022
We had a half-day visit to Stroncone, a tiny hill town not far from La Romita. We seemed to be the only non-residents in town that day, it isn't one of the well known places in Umbria.
This is the entrance to the town, a small gate within a huge imposing gate, in the huge stone walls surrounding the city and keeping it safe from invaders.
Aquarelle pencil, and watercolor for the ubiquitous flags.
San Gemini's Sbandieratori - October 2022
Our class went back to San Gemini for the night-time event featuring the flag twirlers and various parades, all part of the Medieval festival.
We in North America tend to think of flag twirling as being rather tame - but this was Medieval flag twirling, at the Giostre dell'Armes. Think of battle reenactments, but Medieval and Renaissance battles. These flag twirlers looked as if they were fighting with their flags, intimidating their opponents, twirling and whirling their flags in each others' faces, a war with flying fabric as their weapons.
Not that they hit each other, but it really did look like battles with flags. They were AMAZING! Eight men in Medieval dress, tossing flags around and across a circle, everyone catching the flags tossed at them, no flags colliding. Men sitting on others' shoulders, catching multiple flags. Flags whirling so fast, they became blurs of color!
It really was incredible, watching this! The parades following this show were also wonderful, but the award-winning flag twirlers really were the highlight!!!
Sbandieratori means people who handle the flags - bandiera meaning flag. Pronunciation is "sban-dee-ehr-ah-TORE-ee." Roll those Rs!
I painted this in the studio, there was no way to sketch anything, the action was lightning fast! Somehow, the sbandieratoro (singular form) to the left looks like Chekhov from the original Star Trek, and the middle guy looks like Jean-Luc Picard.
Il Monasterio del Orvieto - October 2022
Nancie's class spent a day in Orvieto, and we all wandered around, ate, sketched and painted. Nancie found this wonderful old monastery set among vineyards below the city walls.
So of course I had to sketch the monastery, the cypress trees, the vineyards. I love drawing with aquarelle pencil, just a basic grey, then adding washes of green to hint at the hills and fields seen at a distance.
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