This blog started out as a series of observations when our family moved to Italy from Manhattan in 2011. The part about staying two years turned out to be famous last words. I am now well-established in Italy, working towards a career in illustration (which is why I post less often here now), and this year we will start the citizenship process! But I still find life in Italy to be full of new angles of interest.
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Today, April 5, is the day after Easter, which in Italy is a holiday all of its own–Pasquetta. On Pasquetta it’s traditional to go on a picnic or grill outdoors with friends. Today in Torino we have beautiful weather, but alas, we are in lockdown again. All the more reason to remember good times with friends! Read on…
As our group drove out of town on the last day of our vacation to Lago d’Iseo, we stopped to visit the monastery of San Pietro in Lamosa. Originally an 11th century offshoot of the famous Cluny monastery in France, it passed to the Canons Regular of San Salvatore of Brescia from 1535-1783, and then was privately owned for many years. In 1983 it was given to the local parish, and in recent years the property surrounding the church itself has been used for concerts and other cultural events.
The particularly interesting thing about this church artistically is that since it was never fully remodeled, it’s like a museum of ecclesiastical fresco styles dating from the 12th to the 16th centuries. I particularly liked the fact that since the series of the twelves disciples in the apse was never finished, the six on the left are in full color, but the six on the right are still in the form of (very fresh-looking) sepia underdrawings that reveal the painting process. In fact, one reason I love frescoes so much is that since the paint dries quickly into the plaster, the line work is usually confident and spontaneous-looking, as it is in this sepia underdrawing. The last chapel, near the front door on the left side, is a combination of Renaissance and Baroque styles. You can watch a video with more ample views of the entire complex here.
The whole complex is charming and set on the edge of a natural peat bog with walking paths and wooden bridges. This little stop was a perfect end to our trip. We were all sad to go home, but we were pleased with ourselves for having temporarily escaped the pandemic, and on a very reasonable budget at that.
I hope you enjoyed a bit of vicarious vacationing in Italy! We’re going to have to get a good bit more vaccination done to travel in Europe once again, but hopefully one day we will!
Looking towards the left side aisle
underdrawing for apse fresco
Spontaneous fresco brushwork
frescoes on right side, including St. Bernardino (a Franciscan)
On the third morning of our vacation at Lago d’Iseo we headed towards Lovere on the north side of the lake. When we stopped for coffee by the lakeside in Pisogne, I really wanted to peek inside the fabulous Renaissance frescoed church on the hill overlooking the town, but unfortunately it wasn’t open yet. Thankfully I got a fresco fix all the same later in the week.
When we arrived at Lovere, we visited a huge Renaissance church, Sta. Maria Valvendra, that once belonged to the Observant Franciscan order (there are three kinds of Franciscans) and then we toured the rest of town on foot. Lovere is a picturesque medieval town with typical Italian fortress towers, but what is more unusual is that is has the only wood-trussed (“Tudor style”) house I have ever seen in Italy. After walking around, we ate lunch at an artisanal piadineria (a piadina is a little like a quesadilla, but with Italian ingredients inside).
We spent the afternoon on the other side of the lake in a cantina (winery) in Erbusco. Lago d’Iseo is home to the Franciacorta wine region, where winemakers have adapted French champagne to the local terroir. (It is most definitely not Prosecco.) While I was expecting something traditional with oak barrels and coved brick basement ceilings, the winery was instead quite modern, with steel vats for the first fermentation, and an automatic system that turns the bottles at regular intervals during the second fermentation. We then sat down to try four different bubbly whites and chat amongst our bubbly selves. I took home a bottle of millesimato for New Year’s.
Entry to a convent of Poor Clares, the original female counterpart to the Franciscans
A trussed house in Lovere
a medieval tower
A name carved into a pew at Sta. Maria in Valvendra
Fresco of St. Francis in the same
Millesimato from the Franciacorta wine region
That evening we decided to go to the largest town on the lake, Iseo itself, to get a pizza. (Because for Italians, pizza nostalgia hits quickly.) Here there was definitely nightlife, with lots of people milling around outside, and this is where I first noticed 2020’s black and white fashion trend among Italian girls. Since they mostly had black masks (around their chins), I can only assume it was a practical choice, but it felt psychological as well. I have no idea whether anyone was wearing these colors in the US, but once I noticed it in Italy, I saw it everywhere I went. They also, in typically Italian style, wore a lot of high black boots with short black shorts.
The last installment: A monastery telling the history of frescoes
(Note: I decided to publish this installment a little early as we are entering into Holy Week. I’ll probably publish the last one the day after Easter. If you are Christian, Happy Easter! If not, happy Passover, happy Holi, or just have a good week!)
Day two of the trip to Lago d’Iseo was our collective stroke of genius. We spent the morning walking around Sarnico and Paratico, twin towns on either side of the provincial divide between Bergamo and Brescia. But in the afternoon we split the price of a sailboat rental with a skipper, and spent a marvelous three hours on the lake. We enjoyed the wind in our psychological sails, got as close as we could to the two private island mansions on the lake (which reminded me of the Italian children’s book C’era due volte il barone Lamberto), and then those of us who wanted to could dive off the boat into the lake. The skipper even taught our host to sail. The rest of us basked in the sun and practiced ducking under the boom as it crossed over the boat.
The view north included a Renaissance era church overlooking Pisogne
One of two island mansions on the lake
A view of Peschiera Maraglio (day 1) from the boat
Cliffs near Pisogne
Returning to Sale Marasino
That evening we drove to Clusane, and, if possible, had an even better meal than our lunch from the day before, accompanied by the local Franciacorta wines. We sat outdoors by the lakeside and my friends gave me a thorough education in ‘60s Italian crooner tunes over the course of three hours, since that’s what was playing in the background. I mostly gathered that I should remember someone named Mina. Moving to another country can make you realize that parallel universes really do exist, and the only place the Italian and American crooner universes overlap seems to be Frank Sinatra.
Thoroughly relaxed and having mostly shed our lockdown feelings of confinement and isolation, we congratulated ourselves on a vacation day well spent.
Fish and polenta for dinner in Clusane
The Franciacorta region in Iseo is known for its bubbly whites
If you are longing for a little vicarious European travel during COVID, this is the series for you! I went on vacation during the summer COVID pause in Italy, the timing of which will be obvious once you start reading. By now, having been through several changes of restriction levels since fall–from red to yellow to orange and dark-orange and back to red again–the series will be just as important a reminder to me as it will be to the rest of you that there is, indeed, life outside of COVID.
While most everyone knows about the big northern Italian lakes, like Como, fewer people know about the smaller lakes of Orta and Iseo. Orta is about an hour-and-a-half-from Turin and I have been there several times. But I confess I had never even heard of Iseo, three hours to the east, until I was invited to go there with four friends last August.
“You do all realize it’s between Bergamo and Brescia?” Our organizer asked, raising his eyebrows, when we met in late July to plan our trip. He was, of course, referring to the fact that those two provinces in Lombardy were known for having been particularly hard hit at the beginning of the pandemic last spring. But the case numbers were way down for the summer, and we weren’t going to be in either’s main city. This was to be an outdoor, lakeside vacation.
We quickly settled on a light and clean, newly renovated apartment with enough bedrooms to accommodate our group, and three bathrooms, in Sale Marasino. We soon found out that it was a lovely quiet location—maybe too quiet. A walk around the town after dinner revealed one old couple in the main piazza. The woman was knitting. That evening we walked all the way to the next town just to get an ice cream.
On the first full day of our vacation the group took a ferry to the aptly named Monte Isola (Mount Island). The largest lake island in Italy, home to several towns, it looks from some angles like part of the mainland. Our goal for the day was to reach the monastery at the top of the island, but with some members of the group not feeling up to a 2000 ft climb, this proved to be easier said than done. We arrived easily enough on the island at Carzano, but when we tried to navigate the island’s labyrinthine and spotty shuttle bus system, we waited for more than an hour in a piazza in tiny Siviano, only to have the bus driver ignore us. “Oh yeah, they do that,” the townspeople shrugged. This time it wasn’t a clueless foreign tourist thing, though—aside from me, we were all Italians!
Trees growing along the lake between Carzano and Peschiera Maraglio
From a viewpoint behind the sanctuary
Looking towards the lake from the same viewpoint
Inside the Madonna della Ceriola Sanctuary
By noon we had navigated ourselves three quarters of the way around the island to Peschiera Maraglio (by now we realized that we could easily have walked going the other way), but we were still at lake level. By the time we finally found an upward bound bus (with a capacity of 10), dozens of other hopefuls were already waiting to board. As there wouldn’t be another bus until after lunch, we decided to eat too, following signs through the steep, narrow streets to a seafood restaurant overlooking the town. The restaurant hostess promised us a table (with a lovely view) as soon as it was available. The current occupants, however, turned out to be a teenaged couple eating a bag of chips and drinking soft drinks one molecule at a time. After thirty minutes, we had begun to entertain each other with play by play commentary: “They took another sip!” But it was worth the wait. Getting stressed out is anti-vacation.
After eating more lake fish than we could comfortably hold, we finally made our way by bus to a clump of houses about three-quarters of the way up the mountain. The rest of the route was only accessible by foot, but the view from the sanctuary was worth it, as frankly, was the whole hike back down. The entire island has a “borghi più belli d’Italia”* designation for good reason. And thus ended day one. So far, so good.
Next: Sailing and a lakeside dinner
Descending back into Carzano
A farm overlooking the lake near the top of Monte Isola
Illustration for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
At long last, I have a website dedicated to my illustration! I was wanting to get two more illustrations finished for it to go with the Narnia one above, but then I signed up for the SCBWI conference this weekend and decided to just go ahead and launch the site. So if you want to see what I have been doing, go have a look!
Now that I have a website, this blog can go back to being about life in Italy. Even though at the moment I’m going practically nowhere due to COVID restrictions, I still have plenty of ideas for updates.
Meanwhile, today is Mardi Gras, the last day before Lent, so I leave you with a virtual tray of bugie, the traditional dessert of carnival season in Italy. Bugie were the first seasonal Italian dessert I ever learned about, because they were in the shops when we first visited Turin almost exactly ten years ago. This September will make Ten Years in Torino, and then I will be eligible for citizenship!
View of the Valle d’Aosta from a ruined castle. You can see another tiny castle atop an outcropping on the left.
This summer I spent as much time outside with friends as possible. It was a calculated and I think wise decision, given the spring lockdown and likelihood of a second COVID wave in the fall. Most of it just consisted in taking walks around the city, going to outdoor restaurants, and doing my usual volunteer work, which moved to an open courtyard for the summer. But occasionally we were able to go farther afield.
A couple of weeks ago my hiking companion and I celebrated one last warm-weather hurrah by tackling another stretch of the Via Francigena, a medieval pilgrimage road that runs from Canterbury to Rome (and beyond). This time we walked from Pont-St.-Martin in Aosta to Ivrea in Piemonte—sort of.
Our itinerary above, with the Aosta/Piemonte border in red, estimated walking distance from point to point in blue and Turin at bottom.
The upside of walking the Via Francigena is great scenery, plentiful exercise, and a sense of adventure with a pilgrimage feel. The downside is that when walking from point to point you have to depend on trains, which means starting early and wearing a serious mask. Since this was a day trip from Turin and the COVID caseload was already rising rapidly, we couldn’t finish off with a lovely caloric dinner in a restaurant, either. But we were excited about our trip nonetheless.
We started our day with a quick tour of Pont-St.-Martin, named for a prominent stone bridge overlooking the town where St. Martin, on pilgrimage along the Via Francigena, reputedly outsmarted the devil and got the town a first-class bridge. Never mind that there are at least 15 of such devil’s bridges in Italy (and more around the world) and that the bridge is actually Roman. It’s a colorful story!
The Roman bridge in Pont-St.-Martin (photo from a previous visit) and Sant’Erasmo, the first of many churches along this stretch of the pilgrimage route.
Our next stop was Carema, a very charming village a short walk from Pont-St.-Martin and just across the border between Aosta and Piemonte. Just south of town, though, the path started to follow a highway that curved blindly around high cliffs, with only a tiny shoulder to walk on. We climbed up one of the outcroppings to see if we could get the lay of the land and find a quick way around. Finding the view blocked, we called the local tourist office and a helpful lady gave us alternate directions to Airale, where we were headed.* So we continued upwards into the foothills above the highway.
At first we were a little worried, partly because there were few markings, no map, and we had no idea how far out of the way we would have to detour. But we soon found a sign that said, “Airale, castle trail.” Castle?
From there we started hiking straight up through woods, on a huge stone “stairwell” which someone must have gone to a lot of trouble to haul into place long ago. At about the same time, my friend started to find chestnuts everywhere and stuff her backpack with them. I gathered some myself, but being a bit concerned about the time, I mostly forged ahead. Finally we made it to the top of the foothill we were climbing, and there we saw a tiny sign that said, “castle ruins” and another short path to the right. We scrambled up the hill and there it was, a few ruined walls and a fantastic view of the Valle d’Aosta behind us!** From there we could see several other of the castles that Aosta is famous for.
Above: Walking though Carema, a church dedicated to St. Martin in Carema, the pilgrim symbol that accompanied us along the trail, the ruined Castello di Castruzzone near Airale, and a chapel dedicated to St. Roch along the border between Aosta and Piemonte.
But by now we had been off the Via Francigena for more than an hour and we still had to hike down to Airale, so we picked up our pace. Descending towards the town, we walked through several vineyards, where farmers were harvesting grapes and driving them off in tiny trucks, the kind with one wheel in the front. It seemed invasive to take photos of them, but we did stop to talk. They said they were harvesting nebbiolo grapes and invited us to sample the wine in their cantina. We laughed, imagining the slowdown effect on our already prolonged hike, and politely declined. This invitation then repeated itself throughout the day as we crossed other vineyards.
Once we got safely back on the Via Francigena, we looked for a place to eat our sack lunches. We found our spot in front of a church in Torre Daniele. As you might guess, churches are plentiful along a pilgrimage trail. Most of them are tiny chapels, now locked, so we peaked into the windows. This one was sizable, an active parish dedicated to San Rocco (Saint Roch), the patron saint of plagues. “How appropriate!” I mused as we sat down on benches to eat. It wasn’t even the first San Rocco we had passed (see photos above).
The church of San Rocco in Torre Daniele, where we ate lunch
Walking through vineyards. Most vineyards in this area have stone pillar supports like those shown above, called tupium.
By the time we had eaten it was nearing 3:00 pm and we were way behind pace, so we really picked up our stride and I stopped taking photos for the most part. To make it more of a pilgrimage, we also said a rosary. The ground was flattening out by now and we were walking through fields. I remember passing an unusual row of mostly abandoned houses, each one with a metal gate in front, built into the side of the mountain outside San Germano. It was home to a colony of feral cats.
Our last stop, Borgofrano d’Ivrea. Here the Via Francigena passes under the town clock and into the main piazza.
Shortly afterwards we arrived in Borgofranco d’Ivrea, the next to last town before our destination of Ivrea. We made a quick pit stop in a coffee bar, but as we turned toward the door to leave, we saw it was pouring down rain! We were flabbergasted, as there had been no rain in the forecast and so we hadn’t brought umbrellas. But we were also too far behind our schedule by now, with kilometers to go, to delay our hike further. So when a bar patron told us how to find a stop where a bus to Ivrea should pass by in 15 minutes, we were grateful and ran towards the stop in the rain.
We found the stop, which luckily was under a balcony. There was just one problem: The bus didn’t come. Half an hour later a bus passed, but it was out of service. Two teenage girls walked by and said they saw on their phones that the next one wasn’t coming either, so they were walking home. The lady in the store next to the stop, however, strongly advised against walking all the way to Ivrea along the highway and by now we were wet and a bit cold, so we punted our expedition and called a cab. In this way we made the last train before my ticket expired and we arrived back in Turin just as it got dark.
So, was it a successful hike? I’d say so, despite not having finished it. The most stressful part of any endeavor is not knowing what to do. We had two moments of indecision, the first when the path went along blind curves outside Carema, and the other when the downpour started. And I think we made the right decision both times. There’s no use forcing one’s self to stick to a program that is likely to cause more stress than joy, and we definitely enjoyed the two-thirds of the trail we were able to hike. Plus, we found a castle, and the roasted chestnuts were delicious! Next year, we joked, we would bring friends, stay overnight, and tour the vineyards at leisure! This is a post-COVID dream for sure, but I hope we will! And one reason I write these things is so that my friends outside of Italy can dream of future trips as well.
A view of the Valle Dora Bàltea from the Via Francigena, Settimo Vittone, Piemonte
*Here one might rightly ask why we didn’t just look at a map. The problem was that the map we had on the phone wouldn’t zoom out, so we were having to follow it a bit blindly.
**A later search revealed that this castle was called the Castello di Castruzzone, which from what I could tell was probably built in the 12th century and destroyed during a war in the 16th century. The castles were a sort of customs/toll network through the treacherous mountain valleys. I’ve also heard that they could signal one another, kind of like the warning beacons of Gondor!
The video that turned the tide in Italy. “Distant but united,” by Francesco Sole, music by Ludovico Einaudi. (Partial translation) “We’re all in a small space, but a space that has to be respected…We have realized that the rules for containing this contagion haven’t been respected…We have all messed up: you, me, the government, everyone…This is not a violation of our liberty but instructions for going ahead…You remember that our grandparents were asked to go to war. We’re just being asked to stay on the sofa…Let’s use it to make up for lost time and affections…Everything is still but our brains. Let’s use them more…Knowing how to slow down at the right time is a real victory. Who says you can’t see a beautiful sunset? You can see it in the eyes of those you love…If you can, invest in hospitals…We’re already seeing results…and soon we’ll be saying, “Remember the coronavirus, when we couldn’t even take people by the hand?” Res (ti amo) a casa. (“I love you,” nested within the words, “Let’s stay home.”)
By now the story of the coronavirus in Italy is well known. You know that we now have the highest infection rate in the world, that we are all quarantined at home, that we have been coming out on our balconies to sing, and that our hospital system is overloaded. What can I add to what is already public knowledge? What follows is by no means a scientific or researched account, just a little personal perspective. If you are already familiar with the basic outline of events, you can skip down past the photos.
I remember that when the epidemic started in China, many Italians vented a long-held prejudice against the Chinese. But other Italians rightly pointed out how ignorant and downright useless this behavior was. In those days, a friend of mine and I went out to dinner in a large Chinese restaurant. There were only three other tables with patrons. In those days, I heard, and corrected, a few conspiracy theories.
On February 20, the first known Italian case of the coronavirus was diagnosed in Codogno, south of Milan, evidently much too late. Within a few days it was spreading so fast that the government had to quarantine the whole Lodigiano, as the area around Codogno is called. All Italy followed the drama, but no one took it terribly seriously. They said it was like a bad flu. The mensa (soup kitchen) that I volunteer for had a Carnival party on the 23rd, and during it the news came out schools were closing and that there would be no mass that week. After that day, people stopped kissing one another on the cheek. Masks and hand-sanitizers disappeared, and a number of price-gougers were arrested. It was too late. You still can’t find either. My husband left early for a long US business trip, thinking he could be quarantined or his flight cancelled if he didn’t go ahead and leave. My daughter and her husband closed their language school. Our hands were all raw from washing.
I remember that during the week people I talked to noted the irony of the region not allowing Ash Wednesday when the restaurants were all full, but the restrictions were supposed to only last until Saturday. We had Ash Sunday instead, and someone joked presciently about postponing Easter. The daily soup kitchen was still open, and we even had the next week’s Sunday mensa gathering, albeit with gloves and more distance. But I noticed that many people thought the first week’s restrictions overblown, and Italians are irrepressibly social, so it seemed like the following week, the first week of March, everyone outside of Lombardia where the epicenter was blew a collective sign of relief and more or less went about their normal life. People were complaining about having no one to take care of their kids because schools were closed, and the government tried to provide a way for at least one parent to stay home.
That week the numbers blew up.
I woke up Sunday morning to a message from the US telling me that all Lombardia was shut down. At first I thought there was a misunderstanding. Then I read the local paper and found about about the 2 a.m. press conference and the new decree. I still went for a long walk last Sunday afternoon with a friend, keeping a meter’s distance and only stopping in for a coffee at a small bar after waiting outside for the previous patrons to exit. I remember I walked almost ten miles that beautiful afternoon, and it was a good thing I did. Tuesday I woke up to another message: The whole country was in quarantine for all non-essential movement. Most stores had closed voluntarily by Tuesday afternoon, which is when I went out to stock up on groceries. By Wednesday, the closings were law and you had to have a piece of paper with you stating your necessary destination (subject to verification) in order to go out. I have been at home ever since.
(To read the captions in English, click on the photos and scroll down to look at the comments.)
This week I have been watching the US go through the same learning curve Italy did two weeks ago. Early in the week people were saying it was just the flu and that they were going to travel anyway. Or they were fighting over toilet paper (in Italy we have bidets). Or they were politicizing it in one direction or the other, which just obscured the truth. I was living the truth, watching the numbers of sick all around me climb exponentially (or logarithmically, I never discovered which it turned out to be). I tried not to count the number of times I heard sirens go by in an otherwise silent city, a sound which reminded me of NYC after September 11. But by the end of the week, the message finally seemed to be getting across to Americans. I hope it’s not too late. Italians tested people for the coronavirus from the beginning. In the US, I gather it’s still hard to get a test. That means the numbers are higher than the official total.
At first many Italians tried to be furbi (the word means shrewd, but it has shades all of its own) and get around the restrictions, but last week a mass exodus of students from Milan towards their hometowns in the south and a simultaneous crowding of the Alpine ski slopes by escaping city dwellers seemed incite a sentiment of public indignation and turn the tide of opinion towards public responsibility. By the beginning of the week, social media was flooded with patriotic memes (especially in support of medical personnel) and people who behaved without considering of the effect of their behavior on others were shamed. This is not to say that all bending of the rules as stopped. A lot of memes I’m seeing this weekend joke about taking the dog out for a walk more than necessary. And then there is the irony of realizing that the best thing you can do to help is just stay home so that the virus doesn’t have anywhere to go.
But what I really appreciate is the creative ways that Italians have kept up their social lives. Although I am at home alone, I have probably been in more contact with people than ever. I am taking illustration courses online and communicating with classmates worldwide via Slack. Americans have written to see how I’m doing, Italians are writing, calling or Skyping daily, and as the world now knows, Italy has invented the balcony flashmob. My favorite flashmob video this week was one in Naples showing a policeman dancing to club music as he stopped cars on a narrow street. People in my staid and elderly Piemontese neighborhood are more reserved, though, and when I went out the balcony to clap for medical personnel yesterday at noon, there were few takers. I still enjoyed the prolonged ringing of the church bells at noon today. And I watched a streaming mass on my computer, using an Ikea step stool as a kneeler.
Bells rang out all over the deserted city at noon today in a show of solidarity. (And you can hear that I have a chronic allergy of some sort, but it could be much worse.)
That said, this coronavirus is a very serious business. Italy may have been extra vulnerable because it is a densely-populated, extremely sociable, elderly nation and was also the first country in Europe to have a major outbreak. We were the guinea pigs, after China. But the healthcare system here is not backwards or half-hearted. Doctors and nurses are working long shifts and exposing themselves to contagion in hospitals that are beyond capacity because there are staggering numbers of sick. Just today I read an account of a doctor, about my own age, who almost died of the coronavirus but is now recovering. Even he had to wait for a bed to come open. I can’t translate the whole article, but he spoke of suffocating and said he was only able to keep calm because he had already treated so many people with the same illness and knew to trust the doctors. This is not the flu. I hope you and I don’t get sick, but it’s possible.
The friars at my church are handing out sack lunches to 350 people daily. They don’t have masks. In the past they fed about 200 people daily, but since no one is on the streets to give money to beggars anymore, those who usually rely on pocket change now have nothing to eat. I have a good friend who used to be a friar in Torino but is now in Pavia. He says that he is aware of the risk every day and wears a homemade mask. At his friary they are now handing out dinner sacks as well because so many other mense, or soup kitchens, have closed. He also has to keep the handout line orderly so they don’t get accused of “assembly.”
Even the local grocery store clerks and food transport workers are at risk, stocking shelves so we can eat. And don’t forget all the people who have no income during this crisis because they are on an hourly wage or own small businesses. My hair may get long, but my stylist has no way to earn money. Thankfully the government is moving the deadlines for a lot of payments, but this very necessary quarantine will have longterm economic effects.
As the quarantine goes on, and spreads throughout the world, people will react in different ways. I think it’s interesting how each nation reacts in a way that shows its particular character, for good and for ill. I like the stories of humor, creativity, heroism and sacrifice. I don’t like the stories of panic, sneakiness, hoarding, and bickering. And don’t even get me started on conspiracy theories. I don’t think I’m alone in this. This is going to be a long haul, and we’re all in it together. But I can’t wait for the big party we’ll all have when this is over. Come on over to Italy! If we’re this fun when we’re stuck at home, imagine how happy we’ll be once we can go out again, and besides, we’re going to need all the tourism we can get!
For December, I have been working on a Christmas image. The theme is “Things that can happen when kids put on a Christmas pageant.” I came up with 45 thumbnails and took several of them a bit further to see how well they would work fleshed out. Then I did three more refined versions of “Baby Jesus escapes and climbs up a wiseman’s robe.” This is the final piece, which I finished just today. There are things I’d still like to change, but I’m out of time for revisions.
Lessons learned: Start earlier next year! (I really need to be packing.) But I already have plenty of ideas for next year’s illustration, so that’s a good start.
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, enjoy some time with family and friends and see you in 2020!
In November I participated for the first time in a drawing challenge. Many people know about Jake Parker’s Inktober, in which you produce one ink drawing a day from prompts, but fewer people know about Jake’s SVSLearn co-teacher Lee White’s perfect followup to Inktober–Slowvember. While you make an ink drawing from a prompt every day for Inktober, for Slowvember you work on one piece, of your choosing, for an entire month. Because I am, in fact, slow, I chose Slowvember as my first challenge.
My goals for Slowvember were 1) to experiment with style 2) to have time to complete a background 3) to see what would happen if I gave myself enough time to fine tune after I thought I was finished and 4) to have a finished piece for my portfolio.
I knew right away that despite the month-long time-frame, I was going to have a hard time finishing the challenge because I was going to be away a lot during the first part of the month. In fact, I was in Genoa the whole first week of November. So I decided to use my time there to incubate an idea. The place where I was staying was in itself interesting, as it was located on one of the hills overlooking the old port and was surrounded by terraced gardens. So I spent my free time wandering around the grounds and taking photos.
Another factor: November in northern Italy brings darkness and rain. I don’t just mean a few days of rain and then a break of sun. I mean constant rain–drizzle, steady rain, days on end of pouring rain–from the last week of October until the very end of November. It’s so pervasive that I can remember the one day there was sun–it was Sunday the 17th. The rain, added to the time change at the end of October, mark a distinct change of season and mood which often works itself into my fall images.
Once I got started drawing in mid-November, the process worked like this:
First I did Lee’ style questionnaire and assembled a portfolio of my favorite artists. I recommend this to anyone who is trying to get started in illustration! I won’t post all my work here, but I did come away with the following ideas:
I like to pay attention to characters or the relationships between characters.
My favorite themes are wonder and intimacy.
I tend to like simple and asymmetrical compositions. Often they have a background which is parallel to the picture plane.
I like spontaneous lines and curved lines. I like to see the stroke.
For color: In theory, I like large swathes of neutrals with bright accents. But in reality, I am still a bit confused about color (this played out in my Slowvember piece).
I like the idea of light coming through color rather than from a directional source per se.
I use digital media, but admire a lot of traditional techniques that are hard to produce digitally, such as stone lithography and watercolor. For this reason, I might like to try combinations of traditional and digital media. (I didn’t do this for Slowvember.)
Then I started the drawing/painting process, which is clear enough:
1) Thumbnails: There were my favorites out of about 15 (I didn’t have time for 50 because I started late), on the theme of a child exploring in the rain.
2) Value study: It looks clear enough, so why did my image get so much darker?
3) Color study: Obviously something changed (I accidentally released a saturation clipping mask and liked the result), but the idea of a spot of pink is already there.
4) Painting process
At first I was trying to see if I could keep more spontaneous marks.
Here I was mostly working on the background, and adding some ink.
I decided that the figure needed to be more specific.
These are adjustments I made after flipping the image. I also cropped it. Part of me thinks I should have left the image as it was here, or at least the background luminosity.
On the last day, I spent a lot of time experimenting with 1) how to add a touch of fantasy and 2) darkening or desaturating the background. This is the final image I posted.
Looking back over the month, I realize that where I often run into trouble is that, in working out the details of the finished painting, I depart significantly from the previous steps. Sometimes this happens for very practical reasons, for example the anatomy and perspective aren’t worked out. But this time big changes happened because at first I wanted to experiment with a cut-out collage, but in the end I tightened up. Then, after I flipped my painting to its mirror image, I realized the whole thing was going downhill. And I made changes at the very end because I wanted to add an element of fantasy. Also I made changes with filters, perhaps too many. Take away: Maybe more of the experimentation needs to happen at the beginning?
The result is that I have a finished piece, but I’m not totally convinced by it. It looks overworked to me. And I also suspect that it is simply too dark. But, as one of the SVSLearn guys said, the point of doing these challenges is that it forces you to put your work up against other people’s work and realize, “This is the best I can do right now.” And that is extremely valuable.
It may be that in another week, or another three months, I will look at my Slowvember piece and see exactly what it needs. Or it may be that what I learned while doing Slowvember will percolate and produce better results in future artwork. But I’m definitely going to try more of these challenges. Because the only way to get better is to give yourself a project, get feedback, and do the best you can today!
A coptic triptych in the friary of Santa Maria di Canepanova
Remains of frescoes in the Chiesa di San Teodoro
Frescoes around the altar of San Teodoro
Another fresco from the Chiesa di San Teodoro
Facade of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, where St. Augustine is buried
Reliquary of San Severino Boezio, or Boethius, in the crypt of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro
The original tombstone of St. Augustine, in the crypt
The tomb of St. Augustine
The Chiesa di San Francesco d’Assisi. The Franciscans are now at Santa Maria di Canepanova.
These photos are from a day trip I took to Pavia last week to visit another friend. Pavia is a city with a very long and important history, having been the capital of the Lombards, and has a number of Romanesque churches, which I find to be a nice change from all the Baroque ones in Torino.
The most famous of these churches (architecturally-speaking) is San Michele Maggiore. We went inside the church twice, but there was a mass going on both times so I didn’t take photos of the inside. The Italian Wikipedia article has some nice pictures, though.
Pavia also contains the tomb of St. Augustine and St. Boethius (the author of The Consolation of Philosophy, among others). St. Augustine’s remains were moved from Sardinia to Pavia in the early 700s and housed in a tomb that is a masterpiece of Lombard sculpture, even if no one knows exactly who made it. The remains of St. Boethius are in the crypt. The Lombard style church, with its high altar, allowed for a spacious crypt which sometimes looks like a chapel in itself.
We walked around rather quickly and my phone doesn’t take the best photos in the dark, so I apologize for the gaps in my photo selection. I didn’t even take photos of the lovely 16th C. church, Santa Maria di Canepanova, where we went to mass. But Pavia is another great walkable city (along the Via Francigena, no less), and getting there by car makes it a quite doable day-trip from Torino, so I’m glad I went!
(More than...) Two Years in Torino 