Wanderful Retreats - the next Italy adventure!

I think it's pretty common knowledge at this point that I'm addicted to Italy. So addicted that I try to find ways to get back to Italy every year. This past summer after we wrapped our 3rd year of art retreats (and added Lucca to the itinerary!) I got to show my family around Italy for the first time! This was the first time my mom and littlest sister had ever been to Italy and the first time for me and my Italian step-dad to show them all of our favorite corners of this gorgeous and chaotic country.

As much as I love Italy and sketching across it, I may love sharing Italy with others even more. All these restaurants and historical facts, quiet churches and picturesque alleys, perfect vantage points for photos and sketches. I've gathered a lot of them over the years and I really LOVE sharing these tips with other people and getting them just as addicted to Italy as I am.

While we may have wrapped up the last summer of Bellissima Art Retreats, this certainly won't be my last summer of showing folks around Italy.

Next summer will be my 10th anniversary of first traveling to Italy, and it will be my first that lead a group across Tuscany (back to my hometown) with my new business - Wanderful Retreats!

I'll be heading back to the first town that sealed my love for this country and leading a small group to some of my favorite towns, restaurants, gelato shops, churches, alleys and more. There will be sketching, cooking, wine tasting, exploring, sunflower field hopping and art-filled adventures! I'm a little excited if you couldn't tell.

If you want to know more about the retreats, pop over to the new website! Or if you just want a fix of pretty Italy photos, you can follow us on Instagram too! More than anything, I'd love it if you could share this fun news with your mom, aunts, cousins, best friends and sisters. Or just come yourself! Especially if your resolution is to travel more, why not come travel with me through Italy to learn to sketch and see all my favorite spots!

bits & pieces...over the past few months...

Ciao everyone! 

So...I must admit, it's been quite awhile since I last posted on this here blog. Spring was a bit of  a frenzy between getting the Spring Collection launched, trying out some new markets, finishing up the school year, Spring wedding MANIA, another year of I Madonnari AND getting prepped for our 2nd year of Bellissima Art Retreats in Italy! 

To say things were hectic is an understatement. 

But, now I'm back in the bubble and rested after some down time cruising through Italy with some friends and family at the end of our 2nd retreat. 

I've got some secret projects I'm currently working on (more on that as soon as I'm able to share) and new Holiday designs are in the works too! I'm slowly collecting photos from some recent weddings as well and hopefully I'll get my newest sketchbook Sesto photographed soon. Until then, here's a quick catch up on some highlights you might have missed (if you follow along on Instagram, you've already seen most of this!).

I spent my last few days in Italy this summer sketching across Rome! Hot and sweaty and oh so much fun! 

I also was able to make a quick trip somewhere new -- VERONA!

My last wedding right before I left. This guestbook was a floral beast!

My 2017 I Madonnari piece of Burano, Italy! I'll share more about this monster soon. 

Chalk by Chels has been staying VERY busy lately!

VERY busy! These are from another friend's wedding back in May. 

I tried out the Jackalope market in Pasadena this spring too, and brought the little sis-tern along to help! 

Mural paining with a local elementary school with Arts Outreach! 

This was a dream wedding -- GEODE SLICE PLACE CARDS!! 

Some logo work for a new tasting room in Los Olivos! 

Bellissima Art Retreats 2017

Happy New Year everyone! Well, I guess that phrase is a couple weeks old now. Seeing as we are two weeks into 2017. 

I've been getting back into the swing of things, after taking a nice long break from commissions and thinking about work. Which typically means now that blogging is the on the burner farthest back, in a whole other damn house. I'll try to be better this year! I can't make any promises, but I'll try. 

I know quite a few of you already know about the newest business venture but I wanted to do a little post about what's coming this year! 

Last summer, my business partner and I set out to host our first art retreat in Florence, Italy! It was amazing and so exciting that something we had chatted about over coffee less than a year prior actually came to fruition! 

And so Bellissima Art Retreats was born! We're officially a business (paperwork filed and all, woot!) and we've got big plans for this year. We are plotting some Southern California weekend art retreats but our biggest goal this year is share Italy and creating art in Tuscany with more people. 

So this summer, we're going even bigger! We will be holding 2 one week long retreats back in my favorite Tuscan town...Castiglion Fiorentino! We will be staying in an updated farmhouse tucked back in the Val di Chio just outside of town. The farmhouse is owned by the Buccelletti family, who I've been friends with since I first traveled to CFno years ago. 

Fun story: my friend Michele Bucculletti met his wife, Renee, when she was studying at the study abroad center. I was working there at the time and got to watch the magic of that town bring another couple together and then I got to make their wedding album a few years later!

Renee has been helping us coordinate and get all the amazing activities for the summer lined up! We will be having cooking classes, walking tours of the towns, day trips to Assisi and Cortona (the same Cortona from Under the Tuscan Sun), transportation to and from everything and so much more. Our villa is surrounded by stunning views of olive groves and vineyards that we get to paint every day. Did I mention it also has a pool? Yeah...to say we're excited about this coming June is an understatement. 

We've already had some amazing folks reserve their spots for next summer, and I'd love it if some of you guys could come along! Bring your mom along for a mother daughter trip! Or just your sisters, sorority or genetic! Grab a couple of your favorite besties for a summer of reminiscing about that time you studied abroad together. Surprise your girlfriend with an excuse for her to invest in that "one day I'll paint in Italy" dream. Or simply just do it as a gift to yourself because...why the hell not? 

Quinto the traveling sketchbook update

I fully intended to be a more active blogger this summer. But seeing as it's July 23rd and this is my 2nd post since I arrived a month ago, that didn't go as planned.

Another thing that hasn't gone exactly as expected is Quinto. I still have soooo many pages left to fill and so little time to do so. I may have added too many pages without taking into account that I would essentially lose a week of sketching during the Bellissima Art Retreat. We shall see what I have to show for this summer come August 2nd. 

Here's a little peek at what I've been working on. Some pieces of Assisi, Perugia, Castiglion Fiorentino, Lucca and Florence. There's more photos on Instagram under the hashtag #QuintotheTravelingSketchbook

Our first Bellissima Art Retreat

Ciao friends! Sorry for the long silence, its been pretty crazy over in this corner of the world. Between meeting with potential location hosts, last minute preparations,and the ACTUAL retreat (which had REAL people!), it's no wonder that it has been nearly a month since my last blog post.

At the moment, I'm back in Lucca getting plans together for my last couple weeks in Italy. And also catching up on blog posts and newsletters, of course! I wanted to first give you guys a glimpse of the main purpose of this years Italy trip, our week long Bellissima Art Retreat in Florence.

Well...WE DID IT! Ah! The retreat ended almost a week ago and I still can't quite believe we did it. And it was wonderful! Our guests made some amazing art, spent a week in a gorgeous apartment in the heart of Florence, learned some Italian recipes our in the Chianti region, and feasted on two group dinners. It was amazing. And exhausting but so very worth it. We are already discussing plans for new retreats next year as well.

Here are a few little peeks of the adventures we had during our week in Florence. There are more over in Instagram under the hashtag #bellissimaartretreat2016 as well.

Quinto, the 5th traveling sketchbook

It took a while to get over thinking that it's weird I name my sketchbooks. Yes, I know, it is still odd. But my sketchbooks are more than just this holder for drawings and ticket stubs. Over the years of traveling, my sketchbooks have become my travel companions, often my only travel companion. 

Giving them a name not only makes it easier to differentiate when I made certain sketches or went places, but it also reflects a bit more of what they mean to me. They're not just stacks of paper held together with vinyl and thread. They're pieces of my adventures. They're my icebreaker with locals or other fellow tourists. They're my journal for new Italian words and a calendar for keeping track of where I'm going. They're even my umbrella or cushion if the need should arise. They're the only souvenir that I can't wait to show off to everyone when I come home!

So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Quinto, my 5th traveling sketchbook! 

I haven't even sketched in Quinto, and he's already my favorite sketchbook to date. I was originally planning on making the sketchbook for the summer grey. But when I was at JoAnn's a couple weeks ago, I found this gorgeous mustard yellow bolt of vinyl on clearance and I had to have it! It's so smooth and luscious, I freakin' LOVE this cover. 

The inside is just as special. I was going to use linen like I usually do and at the last minute, I found some leftover chambray fabric that I saved from the bottom of the super long dress I hemmed last summer. I even left the buttons on the edge! 

These are pretty much all the supplies I take along for my travels too. I try to pare it down as much as possible to keep down the weight and bulk. My go-to supplies are: 

• Winsor & Newton travel watercolors
• Kaweco fountain pens (with ink cartridges in black, purple and sepia)
• Kaweco mechanical pencil
• Erasers
• Clips to keep pages open to dry, or for photos
• Kuretake Zig pens in brush tips and fine point
• Faber Castell pen, S tip for painting on top of linework
• Pentel waterbrush, in fine point (I have a fat tip I'll probably bring along too)
• and an Elmer's "Photo Stik". It's archival so I don't have to worry about my pages yellowing over the years. 

You can read more about my favorite pens and where to get them in this recent blog post. 

I hope you'll follow along with my and Quinto's adventures this summer! I'll be posting photos of the sketching progress on Instagram under the hashtag #Quintothetravelingsketchbook. 

And if you'd like to stay in touch further, you can sign up for my newsletter! I'll be posting more details of my travels, as well as opportunities to win some hand painted postcards from Italy! 

You can read about my past traveling sketchbooks here: Terzo, the 3rd and Quarto, the 4th

I Madonnari 2016

OOFAH! I Madonnari this year was brutal! This was my fourth year doing it, and my first year sponsoring myself. I had all my gear lined up the day before, a friend to crash with in Santa Barbara all weekend, and my photo picked out and printed out. I thought I was prepared for what the weekend would hold. 

My lovely friend, Gina Gomez (I've raved about her work before), let me use her stunning photo of a sunflower field in Tuscany. I knew it was going to be an intense piece but I felt I was up for the challenge. 

Saturday came and I drove up to the Mission to get started! I picked an 8 foot by 8 foot square, the same size that I had last year when I drew the Duomo in Florence. It was a great location too, probably the best I've had all 4 years! 

Saturday went great, even though the sun came out. I was able to finish the sky, hills and start the sunflower before calling quits. 

It was all going so well...until Sunday morning when I woke up at 5:30 to the sound of raindrops...

Not a lot, but enough to make me nervous when I drove over at 8:15. Sure enough, the Mission actually got rained on. It washed away my grid, sketches and most of the work I had done Saturday. I was too wet to even try fixing anything. 

It was a pretty somber mood at the Mission. Artists just circling and surveying the damage of all the work. Luckily, Christi drove up shortly after and we went in search of brunch and mimosas while we waited for things to dry up. 

Once it was dry around 11, we had the arduous task of fixing the damage and getting some new work done. Sunday was rough, and unfortunately I didn't finish. So for the first time I actually had to work on Monday! Che palle! 

Monday was great though. A lot of friends and family stopped by to say hello, and I even had a little visit from that bee up above! Lots of little munchkins wandered by too, saying how much they loved sunflowers. I think a lot of people took photos of me with my square because of how well my hair matched the colors and sunflower craziness! 

I worked for almost 10 hours on Monday, and I finished it just in time for the sun to set and the light to be perfect. There were lots of ladders floating about so I was able to hop up one and snap and overhead shot of my beast. 

Guys...I LOVE this piece. I thought I loved the Duomo, but this beast blows that one out of the water. It might just be because I ended up spending over 25 hours working on it or because it was a photo by someone I really admire, but I really do love how this one turned out. 

I'm excited for next year already, especially since I plan to take a photo this summer while visiting the Cinque Terre to use for next year. The countdown has begun...

lately via Instagram

Hi friends! Long time no blog, I know. Things are busy as you may expect. LOTS of new projects and collaborations are brewing and I'm terribly behind on sharing all my recent work too. 

When things get crazy, Instagram seems to be the easiest way to share what I'm making or where I'm heading. I also recently got a Snapchat account! (If you're a Snapchat user, my account is @sketchynotions). I'm still learning how to make the most of it but, in the meantime, I'm having fun using it. 

I'm also behind on a newsletter update! As an apology, I'm adding a FREE PRINT download to the next one. If you're not signed up, here ya go! 

So! here's a little glimpse at what's been happening lately. I'll do my best to get a proper update up soon. 

1. I took a trip out to Texas last weekend! My dear friend got married north of Dallas so we had a mini Italy reunion. This photo was in McKinney, Texas. I LOVE this brick wall! 

2. Some new Spring card and print designs are in the works too! I got a lot of sketching done on the flight to Dallas so you should see those in the shops pretty soon. 

3. I've started staging color photos in the art bubble. Just little collections of things I have around by color. So far I've made green, blue and yellow photos. 

4. So...I have this little unicorn. It's a long story but the gist is my two friends and I take turns taking photos of this little Despicable Me unicorn! He has his own Instagram account too: @smallunicornbigworld

4. I did a couple nursery murals recently. And I LOVE how they turned out! This was for a sweet little baby girl. 

5. THIS BEAST! Ah! I've done a few commissions for this couple before and every single one becomes my new favorite. This was a giant watercolor for their 2nd wedding anniversary. We used a thick cotton paper as a compromise for the traditional cotton gift. 

6. I've had Italy on the brain a lot (see below) and I made a few teeny tiny watercolors! They're over in the Etsy shop if you'd like to call one yours. 

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