Here's a little ditty I did yesterday from a photo taken from a Facebook page. I'm always looking at attractive images to paint and this one caught my eye. Italy is known for it's small intimate spaces. Being a landscape architect by training I'm always looking at space and how it's formed in the landscape and what mystery the original designer has achieved. This space makes me want to 1. go sit on the patio on the intermediate level for a glass of wine and 2. explore the lower space to see what mysteries abound.

I sketched this very slowly utilizing lots of mechanical tools to make sure the roof and building angles were correct. This is a quite complex series of spaces and just one angle being misdrawn would confuse the viewer. So I was careful and the sketch actually took almost twice as long to draw as it did to paint. From start to finish the entire painting took almost 5 hours, much too long. I'll be continuing to time myself to see if I'm getting faster. But since I just found the image in the morning and started work on it around noon, with planning it went pretty fast.

I will tout a friend's book now in the writing stage. It will focus on the best places to paint in Italy so keep an eye out for it in the future. Not only will it give specific towns, but the best places to paint in each small charming town including the finest views and where to set up your easel and paint. Recommended hotels, restaurants and transportation tips will be included.

Pardon me for concentrating on Italy with many of my drawings but for landscapes it simply can't be beat. Compared to my earlier painting from just two days ago I think this an improvement.