Italy in black & white

During my second year of interning in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy, I started making pictures with my film camera. We processed about 3 three rolls in our dark room at the center and I only developed probably three photos because things were so hectic all the time.

And so my negatives sat in their sleeves for these past few years. Up until about a month ago when one of my good friends, who happens to have a film scanner, took it upon himself to scan ALL of my photos! 

It's so fun to finally see these photos! Bits of Rome, Venice, small towns around Tuscany, Castiglion Fiorentino and even my trip to Spain. Way back before I had a smart phone and used Instagram obsessively. I love these photos so much. I wish I had been able to develop them myself in the dark room but finally having scans of them at last is so nice. These are some of my favorites. 

1. My favorite alley in Castligion Fiorentino, just behind the study abroad center

2. Vicolo Ripente, the steepest road in Castiglion Fiorentino

3. The view of the valley from Montepulciano

4. A little lady in Pienza

5. A couple of nuns in the Pantheon in Rome

6. Stormy day in Venice from a vaporetto

7. One of the coolest markets in Barcelona

8. Park Guell in Barcelona

bits & pieces...

Firenze date with Terzo...

Some bits and pieces lately via the instagrammy crack. It's getting redundant I'm sure, sorry most all posting lately is just Italy/food/sketching. I miss doing Friday Features and posting crafty stuff and alike. But as much as I want to do those things right now too, I just need to live here in Italy entirely for this short time. 

So, once the post-Italia blues fade away when I am stateside again I will bring back all those fun things. There will be some new stuff too! Thanks to Ann over at All Things Paper, I won a copy of a Pop-Up Cards book! Hooray! I never win things so I'm pretty stoked about this. It will be fun to make these for the holidays, and also have some new materials for teaching kiddos again. 

I'll post another sketchbook update in a couple days too. Florence was a success today! Terzo and I had a lovely day together, just the two of us. We were interrupted by a bit of shopping but we still had some quality time together. I made the mistake of deciding to sketch the facade of the Duomo. Big mistake. Don't get me wrong, I'm in love with the final sketch but hell...that thing is a PAIN to sketch. And the problem about the sketch is that I could potentially never call it finished, there are so many little details I'd love to include too but that thought is daunting. The Eiffel Tower was a cake walk in comparison...oh well, that's what I get for being too ambitious. 

Favorite photo from Lucca so far. The walls are the best spot for a serious game of chess.

Light magic on the walls...

New wheels! 

Sunset at the Arsenalle in Venice

Grand Canal, Venice

View out of our room in Venice

A park in Bologna

Tortelloni of the pros in Bologna

About to make the sfoglia for tortelloni

Spaghetti Carbonara

Terzo goes to Venezia & Bologna

Terzo is becoming a very fat and happy sketchbook. (That's pretty applicable to my stomach too actually...) I just got back late last night from a quick trip with a friend to Venice and Bologna. 

Venice is one of my favorite cities in Italy so it's rare for me to pass up a trip to such a lovely spot, especially when the Bienalle is happening too. My friend Jen loves the islands Burano and Torcello too so those were quickly added to the list of places to sketch while up in Venice. Bologna has been on my list of places to visit/eat at in Italy so it was time to check that one off the list. And with an epic restaurant recommendation to investigate as well, the potential for lots of awesome sketching spots and places to eat were high! 

The trip to Venice started very early on Tuesday morning so we could get to Venice as early as possible. We stayed at the house of a sweet little old "nonna" which was a very happy surprise. Our room looked right out over a canal, which made for early mornings of noise and lots of mosquito attacks ma vabbè. Afternoon 1 was for exploring and sketching. Day 2 was dedicated to Bienalle and Arsenalle. And the morning of day 3 we jumped on the vaporetti to get to Burano and Torcello. We found an awesome little pastry shop right by nonna's house but pretty much all the epic food spots were found in Bologna.

Watercolors at sunset on the first day

St. Marks

Night sketches/watercolors

Burano, a lace making island off of Venice covered in rainbow houses.

Torcello, another little island off of Venice

At the end of day 3 we left Venice and headed south to Bologna. We found a neat spot for some aperitivo and hit up a language exchange recommended by our hostel. Day 4 we headed straight for a little hole in the wall shop, Pasta Fresca Naldi, that you can snag a some fresh made pasta for cheap. Polenta al ragu, gnocchi con gorgonzola and tortelloni di zucca. Ridiculously good. We were also given a ton of killer gelato spots to check out, none of which disappointed either...considering we ate about 3 gelato each that day. Unfortunately, it was rainy weather in Bologna so sketching was a bit dismal but we ended the night at an epic restaurant recommendation, da Fabio. 

Dinner at da Fabio consisted of the following:

Antipasti- baked Scamorza cheese, fresh ricotta, giant mozzarella di buffalo, baked tomatos, celery/Parmasean salad, grilled endives, spinach quiche, grilled zucchini

Primo- Tagliatelle with Bolognese

Secondo- Osso Bucco

Dolce- fresh made ice cream, chocolate tart, creme caramelle, FRESH marscapone, mousse/meringue cake, fresh chocolate sauce, apple tart, berry crostata and a bowl of clementines. 

All followed by limoncello. Whoa. And yes, we ate all of it. The happy food stupor that followed was ridiculous.  The entire dinner lasted almost 5 hours too. Double whoa. 

The next day we somehow found room to revisit the pasta shop and get some lasagne verde and fresh tagliatelle al ragu. Then some more sketching around town before it was time to catch some trains back home. Epic food/sketching trip complete. 

Quick rainy day sketches around Bologna

The list of epicness from da Fabio

Late night aperitivo sketches

Neptune fountain in the center of Bologna

Train sketching on the way home to Lucca

Revisit: Venezia

Alright...so I don't completely hate this experiment so far.

Last night I edited my sketch I did of Venice and printed it out on watercolor paper. Very strange to be looking at this sketch larger and gearing up to doctor it...but I like the results. It's just weird revisiting a piece that I had already considered complete. Vabbè...

And here's what the original sketch looked like...I made this way back in August 2010 when my friend and I ventured to Venezia for the first time!

Next up, I may take on my Pantheon or Trevi Fountain sketch...or maybe a tiny Tuscan town alley...or maybe head back to Barcelona!

l'autunno viaggia

Fall break was wonderful! I was able to visit Venice again and see the Architecture Biennale. Had some more fantastic Italian food before flying off to Belgium! These first couple watercolors are from Venice, by the entrance to the Biennale and inside the Arsenalle by the old shipping docks.

I was not able to get a lot of sketching done in Belgium. It was far too amazing and time consuming being gloriously lazy at last, and too cold to stand outside for long periods of time! So while we lazed inside where it was warm, I sketched the living room of our hosts in Gent.  

After Gent, I flew south...way south...to Sicily! We stayed in Palermo for 3 nights and explored around the city. We had some time to sketch at the Palermo Cathedral before venturing to the Cappuccini Catacombes....

(a crooked sketch of the Palermo Cathedral...)

One of the residents in the Professor section at the catacombs...

On our last day, Madalyn and I took a train to Cefalu, a tiny little beach town an hour away from Palermo. It was gorgeous and possibly one of my new favorite cities. We had a lot of time to kill waiting for restaurants to open for dinner so we hung out in this little archway and waited with a bottle of Sicilian wine...

Fall is almost gone back here in Toscana. I have a little over a month and a half left here before it is time to find new adventures in the states... I still have over 1/4 of my sketchbook to fill too. Time for lots of sketching! (maybe a trip to Spain to help fill it too)...

La mia vacanza! Primo, Italia!

Time for another update...in fact, multiple updates! I have quite a lot of sketches to upload from this past month of vacationing. It's been a busy and amazing month. I'm very happy with a number of the sketches I've made. I'll put them into two posts: SC/Rome/Venice/Milan/Cinque Terre and France. So! Here comes Italy!!

This is one of the only pieces I was able to make her at Santa Chiara during the last session of students. Our courtyard gained a couple topiaries...

Roma!

I had some time to kill in Rome waiting for my friend to arrive from the states...so I spent a good amount of time around Vatican City and at St. Peters.

(This one is actually larger horizontally, but the scanner I can use has a small screen sadly).

This is one of my favorites of Bernini's angels on the Ponte San Angelo.

Venezia!

This was the view of the alley under our little patio at our hostel in Venice.

THE bridge of Venice.

A few of the locals in a quiet piazza.

Milan!

The train station in Milan is one of the most interesting stations I've come across...I'd still like to work on this one some more...

Cinque Terre!

The beach at Riomaggiore, a little bit cloudy that day.

Now, on to France!!!