A little slice of heaven...

My beautiful apartment here in Civita happens to be directly over a wonderful restaurant, Alma Civita, and under that, are Etruscan caves.  I wish I could eat there every day, but on Sunday, I heard about an amazing dessert, so the next day, I went downstairs, sat at a table, and had nothing but dessert and caffe latte.  Pure heaven, I was literally in a trance as I savored every morsel.

The next day, as I called down from my window to say hello, Maria the amazing chef of this family business (they must be the hardest working people in Italy) who works wonders in a tiny kitchen with a real, wood burning fireplace stove, offered me another piece, saying it had been made fresh that day.  Made with fresh eggs from their farm, etc.  She disappeared, then a few minutes later, I heard a knock on my door, and her lovely smiling face held out a plate with yet another slice of heaven.  I had to document it for posterity, and here it is in my window, the one I leaned out to say buon giurno...

~~Alma Civita's Orange and Rosemary Tiramisu...dessert of the gods.

Caffe Latte with Maria's heavenly
orange and rosemary Tiramisu.

Working...

Yikes, with the internet down a lot, I seem to have gotten out of the habit of posting to this blog!  For shame...now it is working, so I'll start up again.

The weather has gone from very hot to very unusually wet and COLD--as I put on my fleece jacket for the first time today, it felt more like early October instead of the end of July, and the valleys surrounding Civita are lush and green...very strange, especially since it's nearing 90 degrees in Seattle!?!

But at least the weather has been conducive to working indoors and spending a lot of time researching my project: to create an illustrated walking guide to the town.  I am learning A LOT about the history of this place, I'm pretty much ready to start conducting guided tours :)
I also seem to have gone into quite a few of the Etruscan caves of late, and I'm thinking more and more that many or most of them were actually tombs, as creepy as that feels at times since they run 2 and 3 levels below many of the houses here.  The temperature drops as you go further down, with the bottom-most caves staying a consistent 17degreesC, at least I think that's what I heard...basically, perfect for storing wine.

Here also is a shot of the map I'm using for notes for the project, and I also have many pages of notes on my computer, and soon, I'll need to put them all together.

I've also completed wide angle drawings of the piazza, looking in all four directions, which I'll post soon as well! I promise to catch up!

Part of my fellowship study, I want to create a section drawing
that explains elements of a typical house, something most visitors
only see from the outside....

Writing lots of notes on this map of town, and even more on my computer...I'll need
an editor  (I'm actually understanding the Italian in the books I'm reading pretty well...)  

This ~3000 year old Etruscan cave opens out to the cliffs,
common for tombs. Sandro is there for scale,
and he is showing me the cave! He is an original Civitonico.
The cave is right under a house down the street...

And here is the cave, a sarcophagus would lie on the left, and someone later
added an oven on the right...sure, baking in a cave tomb, why not?

Three Color Studies

Yesterday was blazing hot, so with a headache, I stayed in most of the afternoon and did three color studies...still figuring out what colors to use here in this land of stone and sky. Mixed results, but I am learning in the process.

The two cliff images of the town across the valley, Lubriano, are views from Tony's garden. It's amazing to see the light and clouds change during the day and from day to day. For these, I used colors I learned about in the amazing Michael Reardon's workshop...a base of viridian, of all colors, but the glow it gives is pretty incredible.

The view of Civita's church, I'm actually trying to figure out the foreground colors, how to make them dark without being muddy...it's a challenge. 

I hope to redo both of these views, and learning about the colors more will impact my fellowship study of the this town.

Last Weekend in Roma

The internet has been out a lot here in Civita, which has made it impossible to keep up with regular posts!  Maybe it's the heat...
this morning, it's working, so I'm going to quickly post something before it goes out again.  

Last weekend, I got to stay for two nights with the amazing Urban Sketcher and urban gurerrilla style oil painter and now watercolorist, Kelly Medford http://kellymedford.com/ (thank you Kelly and your three roomates!!!). Kelly does oil painting tours in Rome and elsewhere, I highly recommend them.
We also got to meet up with three other Civita workshop participants to join the Rome Urban Sketchers last Saturday, which was great!!  The Rome sketchers group is really friendly, and it was interesting to see how the Italian group approach is so different from what we do in Seattle.  In Seattle, we meet at 10am, sketch till 12:30, then review all the sketches for about 20 minutes, then everyone is gone...pretty punctual.  In Rome, people wander in all morning, set up in various places and work all day, with a break for lunch.  And I don't think there's a group sharing of images at any point.

It was great to meet Matt Brehm, who has a wonderful book on sketching http://www.amazon.com/Sketching-Location-Matthew-Brehm/dp/1465205268 and teaches the Rome program for the Univeresity of Idaho architecture program--needless to say, his sketches are stunning, and I'll see him in Paraty where he will also be teaching a workshop.

It was also GREAT to see Seattle Good Bones workshop sketchers Ben and Francesca here in Rome, in their element!  Beginning sketchers, they are doing beautifully, and what an inspiring place to be most of the year.  I can only imagine their Rick Steves tours are great too.

Then it was off to the Villa d'Este...all in all, a really wonderful weekend, and it was great to meet so many enthusastic sketchers.

Here are a few of my sketches...

Quick sketch of literally the last 5 mintues of light on the Colosseum...

Overworked sketch of the interior of S.Pietro in Vincoli, St. Peter in Chains, and you can see
the chains encased under the baldachino. I'm having a hard time settling down to sketch!

While waiting for the late train at the station  in Orvieto, Mary and I on
our way to Rome.

Small building atop the Michelangelo's
Campidoglio. Sketching with Kelly Medford
from the Civita workshop.

Done with the Rome Urban Sketchers
at the Villa Sciarra in Trastevere. This is
the caretaker's house. The fountain spouts
drinking (and painting) water.

Lunch today in a Cave

Today I had lunch at the bruschetteria next door, literally underneath NIAUSI's Sala Grande where I sometimes work.  At Antico Frantoio (Antique Olive Oil Press), you can have bruschetta toasted on an open wood fire (in fact the smoke tends to blow into my window) and sit in the cave admiring other caves and lots of old equipment. There is a photo of a tiny donkey pulling the huge stone wheel olive press, it turns out that the donkey (now very old) belongs to little Chiara, born here but lives in Seattle and spends her summers with family in Italy.

I like this drawing, I think maybe I'm getting a little closer to figuring out the color palette here...lots more gray than I had thought.  And the bruschetta was delicious!

Delicious bruschetta in a cave at Antico Frantoio, in Civita.

Till Draw Civita 2015...

Thanks so much to the Draw Civita 2014 participants, who came to Italy all the way from California, Seattle, Vermont, and Rome! You worked so hard and did amazing work!

Thanks also to Pentalic and Bee Papers for their sponsorship and contribution of sketchbooks--we loved them, they were perfect for sketching in Civita and beyond.

Thanks also to NIAUSI/The Civita Institute for this wonderful support, and especially to Stephen Day for his time and effort, a year and a half in the making.

Draw Civita 2015...anyone interested...?

Dinner in the garden

Thank you to Pentalic for our wonderful sketchbooks--we loved them!

The group on their way to more sketching...grazie!

Draw Civita 2014, images...

The drawing workshop ended on Thursday last week--it was 
an amazing and wonderful group in an amazing and wonderful place!  
Here is an assortment of images from the five+ days in Civita di Bagnoregio~~
(I apologize that blogger doesn't let me arrange these in an elegant way...)

 

  

Watching the world cup final in Tivoli, Italy

Internet has been a problem in Civita, so I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while! 

Since my last post, the Civita workshop concluded (I think they all improved so much, and it was a great group), I spent two nights in Rome hosted by workshop participant and great guerilla painter Kelly Medford, also joined the Rome Urban Sketchers and 4 of the Civita workshop participants to sketch on Saturday.  I was also soooooo happy to see Ben and Francesca who took the Good Bones 2 workshop in Seattle but live in Rome much of the year!!!  

But today, Sunday, I spent all afternoon in an amazing garden at the Villa d'Este...a garden that predates the ones I studied last year in France, so I was very excited to see it and so glad I actually made it here.  It did not disappoint!  Amazing fountains with water dripping, leaping, shooting, sliding everywhere and hints at the perspective that would eventually really take off in Paris.

I stayed in the gardens taking photos and sketching till late, then walked out to find what must be the entire town of Tivoli walking the streets and visiting with each other.  Was great to watch the brides (here and in Rome) striking very Italian, dramatic poses with their shiny suited new husbands while an entourage of cameras followed them around shouting commands.  It's great to watch the little things here...

So, Ok, I will post many more sketches once back in Civita, and my fingers are crossed that the internet will work...Ciao for now!  Score is still 0-0.

Sketch of the organ fountain at the Villa d'Este, Tivoli Italy

Sketching Etruscan Caves

This morning, the workshop group went to sketch in the Etruscan caves across the little street from where we are staying in the Civita Institute apartments.  Felice and his wife have the area under their house set up like a little museum with old tools, olive oil presses, etc. so it's really interesting to see.  Here is my sketch from the morning...

In the afternoon, we had a great lunch and then did 3, 15 minute sketches around town, complete with watercolor...

Etruscan caves below Felice's house.

Sketching in Civita di Bagnoregio

This is a really wonderful group, and they've jumped into doing lots of sketching! Here are some images...

Draw Civita, starting to get to know the place...

The internet has been wonky here, but here are some photos of the group here in Italy. They come from California, Seattle, Vermont, and Rome.

I hope to post some of their drawings soon, they are all doing GREAT work!!