Before JIB - Lucca sketching holiday
Jun. 26th, 2023 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsThis JIB was number 13 and actually puts us back into the right order, and happened at the right time! I decided before the convention that I'd go to the small town of Lucca for a few days, with the intention of doing some plein air sketching/painting.
I'd visited Lucca on a day trip from Pisa back in 2018, and loved it. The town centre is completely surrounded by massive walls and bastions, dating from the 16-17th century, which give it a unique flavour. It has the usual medieval narrow streets, but because of the walls, traffic is even more constrained than usual, and some areas are pedestrianised. The apartment I was staying in could hardly have been more central, literally two minutes walk from the ex and current cathedrals, five minutes to anywhere else. The other great thing about the town is that the walls - ramparts really - are so wide at the top they've been planted with great avenues of trees and there's a road that runs right the way round the town. The only traffic allowed up there is the occasional police car/maintainance vehicles, and bicycles. So it's a lovely place to to to just wander along and soak in the atmosphere.
For once, my plans to art while out and about were fulfilled, so I'm sticking this post into the latest Drawesome challenge of 'draw what you see'. I do have photos too, but this post is all about the sketching.
First day, first sketch. This is in a teeny slim sketchbook, ordinary paper, using a waterproof gel pen. I went for a walk around the walls and stopped here. The church is San Frediano, and the singing I was listening to was from the Palazzo Pfanner. I wasn't actually anywhere near the botanical gardens, in spite of my caption!
The more I sketched, the looser I got - I was trying to let go of the compulsion to record every single detail and be 'accurate'.
So many interesting doors!
Sketching while waiting for your food isn't a great idea when you order pizza and it arrives in about 5 minutes, so this one of a merry-go-round can be titled Painting Interrupted.
Sketching other people eating was more successful. On a different day, at a different restaurant which did amazingly tasty pizza.
Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, which used to be the Roman ampitheatre. There were many tourist parties with audio guides stuck in their ears. I think these two were Americans.
I even 'instagrammed' my breakfast. 😂 Going out without a phone or my camera kind of forced me to record things differently!
Two longer sketches, both around the 'new' cathedral.
I have added a touch of colour to that last one but haven't photographed/scanned it yet.
So all of the sketches apart from the first one were done in a small A6 Hahnemühle 100% cotton hard-backed book. The paper is great, and the size meant I could fit it into my smallest secure handbag, together with the gel pen, money, fan and phone. Most of the watercolour was then added later, when I got back to the apartment. That really worked so well for me - no excuse about too much to carry around, no worrying about setting stuff up. It was just a matter of unzipping the bag, getting the wee book and pen out, and drawing. And now I've done it that way, I'm definitely going to use that method again.
I still spent some time every day sight seeing and taking photos, but that option to draw was always there. I really liked the people sketching! I even did a little scribble at one of the Puccini recitals I went to. Haven't photographed that one yet, I might get round to it later.
So that was Lucca. If I muster up the energy I'll do another post with some photos because it is such a lovely place.
I'd visited Lucca on a day trip from Pisa back in 2018, and loved it. The town centre is completely surrounded by massive walls and bastions, dating from the 16-17th century, which give it a unique flavour. It has the usual medieval narrow streets, but because of the walls, traffic is even more constrained than usual, and some areas are pedestrianised. The apartment I was staying in could hardly have been more central, literally two minutes walk from the ex and current cathedrals, five minutes to anywhere else. The other great thing about the town is that the walls - ramparts really - are so wide at the top they've been planted with great avenues of trees and there's a road that runs right the way round the town. The only traffic allowed up there is the occasional police car/maintainance vehicles, and bicycles. So it's a lovely place to to to just wander along and soak in the atmosphere.
For once, my plans to art while out and about were fulfilled, so I'm sticking this post into the latest Drawesome challenge of 'draw what you see'. I do have photos too, but this post is all about the sketching.
First day, first sketch. This is in a teeny slim sketchbook, ordinary paper, using a waterproof gel pen. I went for a walk around the walls and stopped here. The church is San Frediano, and the singing I was listening to was from the Palazzo Pfanner. I wasn't actually anywhere near the botanical gardens, in spite of my caption!
The more I sketched, the looser I got - I was trying to let go of the compulsion to record every single detail and be 'accurate'.
So many interesting doors!
Sketching while waiting for your food isn't a great idea when you order pizza and it arrives in about 5 minutes, so this one of a merry-go-round can be titled Painting Interrupted.
Sketching other people eating was more successful. On a different day, at a different restaurant which did amazingly tasty pizza.
Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, which used to be the Roman ampitheatre. There were many tourist parties with audio guides stuck in their ears. I think these two were Americans.
I even 'instagrammed' my breakfast. 😂 Going out without a phone or my camera kind of forced me to record things differently!
Two longer sketches, both around the 'new' cathedral.
I have added a touch of colour to that last one but haven't photographed/scanned it yet.
So all of the sketches apart from the first one were done in a small A6 Hahnemühle 100% cotton hard-backed book. The paper is great, and the size meant I could fit it into my smallest secure handbag, together with the gel pen, money, fan and phone. Most of the watercolour was then added later, when I got back to the apartment. That really worked so well for me - no excuse about too much to carry around, no worrying about setting stuff up. It was just a matter of unzipping the bag, getting the wee book and pen out, and drawing. And now I've done it that way, I'm definitely going to use that method again.
I still spent some time every day sight seeing and taking photos, but that option to draw was always there. I really liked the people sketching! I even did a little scribble at one of the Puccini recitals I went to. Haven't photographed that one yet, I might get round to it later.
So that was Lucca. If I muster up the energy I'll do another post with some photos because it is such a lovely place.
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