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.  

 

Spoleto Clock - October 2022

 

I know, most urban sketchers draw urban scenes.  I tend to focus on small details, like this gorgeous clock.  Italian towns competed with each other for who had the tallest towers, or the most towers.  Also the biggest fountain, or the most fountains.   

I think this clock is one of the prettiest clocks in a tower in Italy, although the clock tower in Venice might rival this one.

But when did you last see the clock hands looking like squiggly rays of sunlight, emanating from the center and radiating across a sky blue circle?  Just gorgeous.

Yes, I messed up on the numbers.  Another student just came back from the gelato shop, and was waxing eloquent about the dark chocolate with orange peel gelato.  I was understandably distracted.  Yes, that was my afternoon snack, and it was amazing, especially with half a scoop of caffe gelato.  OMG.  Heaven, to go with the celestial clock!

 

Villa Lante, Italia - October 2022

 

Our second class also visited Villa Lante, and I sketched the Fountain of the Air, La Fontana del Aria.  This fountain is in a huge rectangular garden with sculptured hedges forming various arabesque patterns, very Renaissance, with pedestals and stone urns at regular intervals.

This garden is at the lower level of the Villa Lante gardens, which are terraced on a hill overlooking the town of Bagnaia - and I'm not sure how one pronounces that in Italian, it's sort of "Ban-YA-ya" but the first YA has more of a nga sound to it, like lasagna.  Anyway, the town of Bagnaia can be seen below the garden of air, with this lovely fountain.

The youths seem to be holding up a globe, and are surrounded by four lion heads gushing water, which trickles down into a reflecting pool.  Really a gorgeous fountain.

 

San Gemini weekend - September-October 2022

I had two days between workshops, and spent the weekend in San Gemini, watching the town set up special events for their festival.  My afternoon was attending all sorts of interactive little vignettes of Medieval Italian life, or at least what people have handed down as traditions from that time period.

I learned to roll the traditional pasta (like a thick spaghetti), listened to music played on the drum and recorder, wasted time with three witches (part of the legend), and watched horse riders practicing the jousting.  (Really just getting their lances to hit a target, not each other.)

The old palazzo turned hotel where I stayed had an upstairs patio, so I sketched the view across to the northern end of the town, with cliffside houses flying their flags, and bunting hanging down the sides of the cliff.

 

Orvieto, Italia - September 2022

 

 

 

Orvieto is a large hill town with a huge and famous cathedral.  The day we arrived (in the first class), there was some sort of food festival, or maybe a farmer's market with a wine festival - just food and wine stands scattered around different parts of the city, and a lot of visitors tasting and sipping.  

I wandered into one of the covered markets, and found a table covered in jars of homemade jams and marmalades, each flavor with a specific color fabric on top to differentiate the fruits.  Just gorgeous in all the colors, with ruby and garnet and amethyst colored preserves in the jars.  I sketched, I took photos, I chatted with the man selling these jams.  I sat outside and colored in my quick sketch, but later was able to make a complete painting in the studio, using both my sketch and photos for reference.  I think this is one of my favorite pieces of art from this entire trip.

We walked along the "road" on the top of the old wall surrounding the city - this really was a road, once upon a time, with horse-drawn cannons and marching regiments to protect the city.  I did a sketch in aquarelle pencil of one of the lamps, part of the wall, and the vineyards in the distance.

 

 

 

Assisi, Italia - September 2022

 

Our first day in Assisi turned out to be a very wet, grey, rainy sort of day.  So we stayed under one of the many Medieval arches, drawing and painting the scenes in front of us.

 

I don't like to paint en plein air (artist's way of saying outside in fresh air) when the weather is that wet, so I stuck with drawing pens. 

 

Just a couple of women having a lively discussion, complete with arm gestures and shopping bags fluttering with the movements.

 

My second sketch is a little statue of Saint Francis leaning in the corner of a window - he was "dressed" in part of an old sock for his hat, and what appeared to be the sleeve of a sweatshirt for his clothes. Appropriate for Saint Francis.  So I named this "Saint Francis of the Old Clothes."

 

Lake Bolsena, Lago Bolsena, Italia - September 2022

 

I attended two workshops while at La Romita, the first being a watercolor class for one week, the second a pastels class for ten days.  I know how bad I am with pastels, plus I prefer to travel light.  So with the instructor's permission, I continued to work in watercolor rather than pastels.

The two sketches are from Lago Bolsena, a very pretty lake in central Italy.  Our class went there after Villa Lante for a picnic lunch, then a walk to the town of Marta, where we could draw/paint the boats, fisherman, the lake.  I liked the view from the far end of the curving beach looking back toward the town, with some of the fishing boats hauled up on the beach.

 

Top sketch was done during the watercolor class with Keiko Tanabe.  Bottom sketch was done during the pastels class with Nancie King Mertz.  It was a greyer, windier, wetter kind of a day.

 

 

Villa Lante, Italia - September 2022

 

 

 

We visited Villa Lante, a Renaissance garden full of fountains.  Absolutely gorgeous and wonderful, with all sorts of grottoes and nooks and crannies featuring plants and fountains.  The various gardens were supposed to represent the four elements of water, air, earth, and fire, although I truly have no idea how anyone can represent fire through water.

I really liked the Pegasus fountain, and spent time working on a watercolor sketch in my book.  I liked the way the sunlight glowed on the back of the metallic Pegasus, highlighting him.

I also snuck in photos of the official fountain cleaner.  Really, this man spent his time taking off the spouts, cleaning out algae and such, cleaning out the pipe openings, putting the spouts back and, and getting rather wet in the process.  My favorite part, though, was that the plastic tubing he used for cleaning the spouts and pipes exactly matched the lime green shoelaces on his sneakers!  

My studio time was spent painting the mysterious fountain man, with the very exuberant fountain bubbling away around him.

 

 

La Citta di Spoleto - September 2022

 

Spoleto is best known for its international music festival.  It also has a duomo with the last frescoes painted by Fra Filipo Lippi, and a Roman amphitheatre.

I love Spoleto for the wonderful truffle items found there, as well as the small parks that dot the town.  After a visit to Lippi's frescoes, I sat in a little park and did a watercolor sketch of the city below.

 

Sunflowers at School - La Romita, Umbria - Italia, September 2022

 

There wonderful fields of sunflowers all over Italy, as well as gardens full of late summer to early fall sunflowers.  The Italian word for "sunflower" is "girasole," meaning turns with the sun, or follows the sun.  

The garden at La Romita has pompom sunflowers, which somehow turn and hang downward as the flower fades and dies.  I liked the vaguely sea creature quality of this particular sunflower as it drooped.  The rest of the garden sort of faded into a blur as I sat in the garden and sketched, and began my painting.  Then it began to rain, so I finished in the studio.

"Girasole della Romita"

San Gemini, Italia - September 2022

 

I somehow, magically, won a trip back to La Romita art school in Terni, Italy!  Amazing, and absolutely wonderful!

More travel to beautiful little hill towns, wandering stone-paved streets and under archways dating back to Medieval Italy, before Italy was even a unified nation.

The town of San Gemini, in Umbria, was having their annual festival, Giostra dell'Armes - the jousting of arms.  Colorful flags all over this wonderful town perched on cliffs above the rolling hills.

Our tiny class of two students spent a half day wandering and painting.  Our instructor, Keiko Tanabe, painted a view across the town to the hills; I liked this old wall with a gate, and the flags of the uphill city quarter flying against the ancient stones.  Top sketch done on site, bottom painting done in the art studio at La Romita.  I like the trees better in the sketch, but the flags of the final painting are better.