Sunday, March 23, 2008
This is why I travel
I love to go and see. You can't make up stuff like this Flamenco performance. I spent a little time last weekend working on a small watercolor.
I always take my little watercolor kit and pad of Arches paper with me when I travel, just like I did when I spent a summer in Florence, Italy 8 (wow I'm old) years ago. On that trip, we spent the mornings in museums and churches, the hot part of the day in our cool apartment eating cherries and bread and cheese, and the afternoons sitting on the edge of a bridge painting. I had 15 watercolors completed at the end of that trip. They're scattered now, given as gifts. I probably should have kept them. I still do have the Venice painting hanging in my bedroom. I'll have to try to get some pics of them up soon.
I saw such a change in my painting from the beginning of that trip in the summer of 2000. I sat with a wonderful quirky artist--Frank Stack on a few occasions. He was a professor of painting at the University of Missouri where I went, and he gave me some really great pointers. For one thing, he was ALWAYS sketching. People, people, people. In the train station, at Pisa in the courtyard. For every sketch of my pixie-like roommate, whom he loved, there was a drawing of me in the manner of Michelangelo's Sybils. I guess that's not a bad way to be depicted.
I would really benefit from constant drawing/sketching. I would benefit from having 30 hours in a day, too.
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That watercolor is very fun. It's awesome that in your crazy busy life you can still find time to paint & draw! I was an art major and I haven't drawn anything (other than my new cartoon hammer) in a few years.
Oh and I LOVE Italian cherries!
I love the water color.