Well, it's been a long time since I posted. Many things have happened in my life since 2006. I took a watercolor class at Art & Soul 2006 from Barbara Roth and was so taken with her that I decided to join her watercolor group trip planned for May 2007 to Cortona, Italy. I really got into it & created a Yahoo Group for those of us going to help us get to know each other before the trip. It was all-expenses-prepaid trip so we didn't need to worry about cash except to buy souvenirs.

I had spoken about my plans to my sister, Holly, and she worked it out so she could go along too and just not participate in the watercolor portion of the trip.

I prestarted my sketchbook/journal with practice watercolor thumbnails. As time went on, I printed out all of our emails from the Yahoo group on transparencies to interleave between the pictures. The book turned out to be about 5x7" and about 2.5" thick which I dragged around with me but rarely wrote in until we returned. I hand painted a grape cluster on my watercolor bag (see below). We were supposed to bring a small folding camp stool which I found for $15 at GI Joe's, packed into my too-heavy backpack, never used and left behind.

We arrived in Rome via Amsterdam on May 30, at the Leonardo da Vinci airport, caught the train into Rome's Forum Termini with just a short time to make it to our connection to Camucia, the little town where we'd take a taxi up to Cortona. As we were going thru Camucia I tried out my minimal Italian asking "Questo Citta?" What is this City? So we arrived at Hotel Oasi Neumann, a former monastery, set on the top of the hill within walking distance (uphill) of Cortona town center. We made that walk a number of times. The rooms were very clean & beds comfy. Our room overlooked the villages of southern Tuscany. We had all breakfasts in the restaurant in the hotel, lots of cappucinos, granola, yogurt, milk. We only had one or two dinners there. The others were in various restaurants which had a contract with Patrick, the trip host.

We had a couple of day trips, one by train into Florence where we walked around, took in a flea market (in place of Boboli Gardens because we were running late) and a very rushed trip through the Uffizi Gallery. Some unfortunate trip-planning. Barbara wanted to look for italian shoes. Holly & I took a photo of an older man in hot pink jacket & kneesocks-very dapper.

Another trip we took was to an outlet mall and to the house used in "Under the Tuscan Sun" and to the wall where the old man left flowers everyday. Then we went to Lucignano, a medieval walled hill-top village to take photos for use in our paintings. A beautiful little town, we could make the walk around the perimeter in just a few minutes. What I found very interesting was a fountain at the entrance to the city in the bottom center of this photo. It was a war memorial to Italian rebels executed by the Nazies portraying a letter from one of the rebels to his mother.

Another highlight was our driver, Alberto, who did not speak much English but was very cute.

We had a couple of painting sessions in the huge fourth floor studio space. I learned that it's OK to trace using a grid over a small photo to get a good sketch to paint. I tried an interesting wood doorway using both the grid & freehand. I was much happier with my transferred sketch using the grid. I came back with a number of beautiful watercolored calendars for inspiration.

When it came time to leave, I had planned a day & a half in Rome to see the sights as long as we were there. I had planned two escorted tours but found that the one through the Roman Forum was plenty. We went through several temples and saw rocks with furrows 2" deep worn into them from the repeated use by chariots. We went down into the Temple of Mithras which lies 64 feet beneath a renaissance church excavated in the 1800s. Very dim & winding.

Holly & I were very tired from the trip so just wandered around the neighborhood of our hostel, which was in sight of the Termini. We were on the third floor with the bathroom/showers down the hall. We had to enter the hostel through huge gates on the street using a key. Looking out our window, we saw the backs of many buildings with people's laundry hanging and had bats swooping past the window in the evening.

We never went out at night and as always, the last few hours were spent just laying around in limbo before we needed to get to the train to the airport. Finally, nervous that our alarm wouldn't work, we got up quite early and trudged pulling our packs on rollies to the Termini, making it to the airport early. The trip home was long & difficult & we were very happy to be home.