Terzo progress...

Sorry for the mini blogging hiatus. I took a trip back to Castiglion Fiorentino for Halloween and to visit with friends. What was supposed to be a 2 day trip turned into about 4.5 days of visiting, catching up, Antique Fair and shenanigans. Fantastic shenanigans but not as much sketching as I would have liked. But I still have some new sketches from right before the Venice/Bologna trip and this past week to share...

A FREEZING cold night sketch in the Anfiteatro and the view from the Guinigi Tower.  

Food wise. It's still pretty gloomy outside here in Lucca so today I did a bit of shopping and bought about €10 of cheeses and pancetta...which means carbonara is happening tonight! It's such a good cozy comfort food. Movie + vino + spaghetti carbonara = my lazy Monday night! Perfetto! 

I'm going to make a day trip to Florence tomorrow to properly visit/sketch that lovely city. No bags to haul, no trains to catch, no rush. Just me and Terzo on a date in Firenze. 

Gelato count...I've been slacking. 

Bit of collaging and more night sketching/quotes

The walls of Lucca on a lovely rainy day. 

More wall sketching, I could spend all day up there...

One of my new favorite Italian words, studio leaves and a 5 minute sunset watercolor

Rainy day sketch crawl through Castiglion Fiorentino down one of my favorite alleys... 

Meloncino sketches at La Piazzetta

Arezzo Antique Fair sketching

Late night sketch at Velvet Underground, then another favorite quote...

"start listening to the silent spaces in your thoughts 

and enjoy the wells of peace that exist within them"

Lucca & a bit of antiquing...

Lucca is very quickly becoming one of my favorite cities in Italy. It's pretty incredible how there's just so much good food/wine/buildings/art/people/everything is contained in these walls.  Lucca is a little town in Tuscany with giant Renaissance-era walls around the whole old city, which now function as a raised park and walkway all around the town.

I pretty much haven't stopped sketching since I arrived. Which is great, since Terzo is huge! Plenty of pages for this adventure. 

I'm going to finish up a couple sketches and head out during the siesta to sketch some more today and post a big update on them all tomorrow. 

Today is also the Antique Fair here in Lucca. I've always loved the one in Arezzo so I was interested to see how this one compared to the sprawling Festa Antiquaria in Arezzo. It did not disappoint! I actually might prefer this one more...it felt more manageable, while the Arezzo one can be a little overwhelming. And I came away with some lovely goodies too. I found a gorgeous little ring, an awesome crochet shirt (wearing it now!), and this hand-stitched pillowcase I instantly swooned over. I wish I had unlimited luggage space and funds, I wanted to buy every pillowcase and rug that booth had!