A Day With Nothing to Do

First of all it was not too hot. The sky was overcast, the air was soft and there was a pleasant wind. After 2nd breakfast, we walked around up in the top of Castelvecchio looking for some different places to paint. I took lots of photos and divided them into a “Morning”  and an “Afternoon” album on my computer. (pure genius). 

In the Afternoon

New Vistas

The earthquake zone is getting increasingly overgrown and desolate.

The portrait situation is so out of control. You may have heard me say, “if I had to be a portrait painter I would die!” I guess I am dead. I am afraid every time someone unexpected comes up to talk to me. “You took my photo two years ago? Where is my portrait?” “You took my photo 10 years ago? Where is my portrait? “ “These are my three friends from Roma, please paint their portraits.” “Here is my phone number. Call me when it is finished!”  Ok everyone is super nice about this, but it is embarrassing to be reminded when you have zero memory of something and it is just a little bit of pressure. I have three portraits done so far and the two of kids are really bugging me. I wish I would say, “no more kids!!” They are just too hard. I said something brilliant yesterday when I was taking a photo of someone I actually WANT to paint, “the life is in the face.” Kids just don’t have enough life yet for it to show in their faces. Mama mia.  Currently I am painting a nun from Rome who does a TV show with the Pope for Italians living outside of Italy. Next, I will probably be painting the Pope himself. Right? He would like a modest little watercolor of himself. Not some giant oil painting with cherubs and stuff flying around. 

While walking back from our painting recognizance mission, we walked by our neighbor’s garden. We both have water problems from a blocked drain up above our houses. When it rains water runs down a large hill and into our ceilings. Because it is all stone, it doesn’t destroy the ceiling, but it makes it humid and musty in the house…honestly, we don’t notice it, but the neighbors do because they are used to it being so dry. Our ceiling is in tatters and the wall that I repainted after last years water damage is covered in that fresco blume and the paint is falling off. This is the third time I have painted over this wall and I will not be doing it again. Anyway, the neighbor, Jim and I went to see the major and Salvatore talked to him for quite a while. I nodded and Jim looked attentive. Salvatore laid out the whole problem and the mayor said we should write a letter. It does not sound too promising. Next Salvatore took us to see his other garden. This is the BIG garden out in the country. It was so beautiful and we got to meet his dogs. He said that we would come there and have arrostichinis. We said, “SI”. We said, “Si” many times, very loudly. 

The Country Garden

LaLa

Salvatore and LaLa

Finally we went home and took a tour of the water problem back to its source. I took many pictures to put into evidence. There is a big change and I know this is true, because I have painted up in the areas where the water is coming from and it is clearly different now than before. Sending a letter to Rome about the problem seems a little like sending a letter to D.C. about our septic system in Vermont. We shall see! 

After all that I worked on the portrait of the nun, when out to my newly identified landscape site and then it was on to the piazza and bar Komodo to watch Italy play Spain in the European Cup. Pretty exciting because we had rosemary potato chips, prosecco ,(.80c a glass) and Italy WON!! It was a really good game with Italy dominating. 

I do really like this idea of taking photos of the places I think I would like to paint, coming back to our house, thinking and looking at them, figuring out the best composition, and doing the drawing at home. It is so much easier to go out and get started painting when the drawing is done. I did have the one bad experience where the painting was a fail because of the drawing, but today went really well. I have to go back and work on it again, but mostly it is because it is so hot and I get too tried to work on the little finishing things.

So for a day with nothing to do, it was pretty busy. Adventures always come our way! I am pretty proud of my Italian in-spite of complaints by other, native, speakers. Brava Jeneane or Giovanna! Brava!

Last good  news of the day:  Italy beats Spain and Iceland beats Exit-land. We'll teach you to leave the E.U.