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.
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!
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.
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 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.
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.
