There is plenty to smile about when staying at Fattoria Bacio, where my workshop was held last September and October. There are the incomparable views, of course… and the historic buildings… the vineyards… the olive groves… the pool… the chapel… and the sketch-worthy scenes everywhere you look… But the one thing that not only made […]
Category: Sketchbooks
Tuscan Hills Sketch + GIVEAWAY
It felt good to finally arrive at Fattoria Bacio and have a chance to settle in for two full weeks. Home Sweet Home…temporarily We made it! It was as beautiful as ever… And there were just as many cats as last year, if not more. Kitties routinely get dropped off at Fattoria Bacio, and the […]
“Too Much Luggage” Sketch + Paintbrush and Holder GIVEAWAY
After a day and a half of traveling to Italy from the US, and two and a half days in Cinque Terre, it was finally time to move on to Florence and then to Fattoria Bacio, in Certaldo, where I would teach two week-long sketching workshops. My friends Cindy and Carol watch the scenery going […]
Manarola Sunset Sketch + GIVEAWAY
I’m glad I took the time to journal on this trip to Italy. It does take some effort to make time to write things down each day, but it’s amazing how quickly we forget the details if we don’t record them in some way. Each day blurs into the next and you can’t rmember where […]
Vernazza Sketch + GIVEAWAY
When I visited Italy in September, I only had two full days to explore the towns of Cinque Terre, but we managed to see four of the five villages, and that was without rushing around too much. We had leisurely lunches and hours of meandering, plus time spent sketching. One of my favorite experiences was […]
Step-by-Step Watercolor: Olive Sketch
The olive oil from Fattoria Bacio (the estate that hosts my workshop in Italy) is the best I’ve ever tasted! During our week at the villa, the students and I sloshed it over just about everything at dinner each night: bread, pasta, salad, meat, and vegetables. And by the end of the week, we all […]
Road Trip Sketches
When I taught my Maine workshop a few weeks ago, I had to do all the driving to Maine and back – 16 hours each way. I generally don’t enjoy driving on a long trip. It’s boring, exhausting, and sometimes frustrating, like the time I blindly followed my GPS into a traffic jam in the […]
Sarasota Farmer’s Market
One last sketch from Florida… 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″, ink & watercolor in a Stillman and Birn Alpha series sketchbook It was too windy to sketch outside on the day I visited the Sarasota Farmer’s market with my sketching buddies, so we snapped pictures and headed for a warm, cozy Starbucks nearby. There, we spread out […]
Thumbnail Sketches – All Dressed Up!
One of the lessons I taught my students while in Tuscany was about using thumbnail sketches to zero in on a scene and test out various compositional options. I suggested using a separate sketchbook page for the thumbnails and later turning that page, with its accumulation of tiny scenes, into a dynamic page in its […]
A Change of Season
Spring is here! Flocks of robins are hopping all over our yard and the snow is finally gone! 8-1/2″ x 11″, ink & watercolor in a Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook. Drawings done with a black Pigma Micron 01 pen. Last Friday was officially the first day of spring, and even though the temperatures […]
