Across the Aegean

Yesterday I commented that back in 1998 I painted a still life that included two art books that my painting instructor owned, and I wrote about Venice Sketchbook.  The other title, which I eventually bought for myself, was Across the Aegean: Am Artist's Journey from Athens to Istanbul.  This latter title also is a series of travel sketches done in watercolor, with some personal reflections about the places the writer/artist visited.  While I had visited Athens in 2003, until this month I had never visited Turkey, so much of the book didn't mean a whole lot to me until now.  Marlene McLoughlin's sketches in pen and paint are smaller than Hank Scarrey's, more personal in their subject matter, and more pastel in their use of color. 

McLoughlin's sketches are often of her impressions of sunsets, hillsides, farm animals, and sun washed buildings and architectural details.  She doesn't include people very often.  But because I remembered her sketches I found myself looking at little things, food carts, pigeons, chairs, and olive leaves.  Here are a few of my photos that I think might have caught the eye of the author of this charming travel sketchbook.

This little potted orange tree sat near the entrance to a Greek winery on the  Peloponnese peninsula. I failed to get a good picture of the peacocks that wandered under the trees there.

These donkeys are for hire to carry tourists 800 feet up a twisting and steep path from the dock to the village of Thira, on Santorini.

The waters at the Strait of Bosphorus are filled with traffic.  Here you can see a tugboat and a water taxi.  In the background is the Bosphorus Bridge, over 4,000 feet long, linking Europe and Asia. At night it it lit with red and white lights, creating a dramatic zigzag in the dark.

The spires of Hagia Sophia make the skyline dramatic in Istanbul.  To the left in the trees is Topkapi palace, and to the right, cut out of the photo is the Blue Mosque.  There was a sort of haze over the city both days we were there, and I suspect it is smog from the heavy car and bus traffic.

These are windows from the harem at Topkapi palace.  The place was beautiful, ornately decorated with frescoes, tiles, calligraphy, and stained glass like you see here.

While we didn't get to see the ruins or sculptures at Athens because of dock and transportation workers strikes, we did see the wonderful ruins at Ephesus.  The library and terrace houses were particularly impressive to me.

I find myself very much attracted to cypress trees that are found all over the Mediterranean, in Italy, Greece, and here at Ephesus.

While McLaughlin includes watercolor sketches of dogs, of which we saw plenty, but she doesn't include any cats.  Because my husband and I have a spoiled pet cat, and missed her the two weeks we were gone, I found myself noticing the many cats that roam all over Greece and Turkey, almost of of whom were friendly, vocal, and very much at their ease. This one rested outside the museum of antiquities removed from the Ephesus site.

I still have not sat down to do any painting, and am finding it hard to leave my photos quite yet.  Soon, I hope, I can get back into a regular schedule here at home.

Considering Venice

I have been to Venice three times.  In 1972 I traveled by train with my high school girl friend Rosemary, and we visited Venice for four hours on a hot July afternoon.  I was not impressed.  The crowds were horrible, and the water filled with floating garbage.  I have no pictures.

Last year we visited by bus in chilly March with a group from UW Whitewater, and we found scant crowds, and it was cold.  But the beauty of the city disarmed me, the bridges, water, elegant facades, even the ladies dripping in furs who commanded the street in front of the Venice opera house, all took my breath away.  I still dream of a little restaurant in a back street where we paid inordinate sums of cash and were fed the best fresh seafood of my life. I took scads of photos and was beginning to fall in love.

Then we took a Mediterranean cruise this month, flying into Marco Polo airport and then boarding a huge Holland America ship.  It began and ended in Venice, and the city captured my heart forever.

Backing up a bit, specifically to 1998.  I had lost my best friend, a fine artist and teacher, to cancer, and had decided to start painting again.  It was clear to me that a long life was not a sure thing, and that there was no point in waiting until I retired to restart my art.  So I took a summer watercolor class with Amy Arntson, a fine painter, at Whitewater.  The big final class project was a still life, and I used one that included two art books in the painting, both of which belonged to the instructor.  One was Venice Sketchbook, by Huck Scarrey.  Two years ago I bought a copy of this slim volume of watercolor and pen and ink sketches for myself, and I revisited it before our trip to Venice this month.

Scarrey has clearly lived in Venice, seen its tourist attractions, but also its back streets and islands.  He has been there all times of year, all weather.  I love his sketches, the quick and the complete, and reading the book before we arrived helped me decide what to look for, and reading it afterward reminds me of what I've already seen myself, and makes me want to return to see more.

I have real difficulty in drawing and sketching en plein air, especially when time is short, and there are other people's schedules to consider.  But I take my camera with me everywhere, and I was interested to see that my photos conform to Scarrey's divisions in his book. Perhaps I can use my personal photos to create a sketchbook of my own, although created at home and after the fact.

Here are some of Scarrey's chapter headings, and my photos that fit each category.

CANALS: Canals are the streets for vehicles (boats) in Venice, and the Grand Canal is the main street.  The canals are busy with all manner of boats - water taxis, vaporettos, fishing boats, cruise ships, all use the canals.  But the areas where people walk are free of traditional vehicles, which contributes to a sort of quiet that I like very much.

BRIDGES: There are hundreds, including the famous Bridge of Sighs, which is still swaddled in plastic for renovation.  This photo is of the famous Rialto Bridge.

FACADES: The old buildings of Venice are build in the water, not just next to it, a fact that always amazes me. The warm Mediterranean colors, the Moorish windows, the extravagant chimney pots, all are worth considering.

SAINT MARK'S SQUARE:  This is what everyone comes to see, the Basilica di San Marco, with it's fantastic pillars and domes, tiles and mosaics.  It is the heart of Venice, and these days while there are still legions of pigeons, there are even more people.  Still, I catch my breath a little every time I see it and the famous bell tower across the plaza. I took this photo through the glass of the observation lounge of the Niew Amsterdam, our cruise ship.  It gave me a very different perspective than I had from standing at ground level.

MASKS:  When we visited in March last year it was just after carnival, and I found myself taking photo after photo of masks in shop windows.  This time I didn't as much, so the photograph is from last year's trip. I sometimes dream about having a gorgeous mask, and a heavy hooded cloak to wear to Halloween events in chilly Wisconsin. Not this year, though.

ISLANDS: As we flew into Marco Polo airport this year I could see that Venice has many many islands, many connected by canals.  But there are large islands that can only be reached by boat.  Last year we visited two of them, Murano, where famous glass factories still operate, and Burano, a fishing village that also is the home of world-famous lace makers. I love Burano best for the brightly colored houses, many with laundry hanging out the windows to dry.

Scarrey also has other chapters about the seasons in Venice, and of the many docks and boats of the area, though I don't have many pictures that correspond to those areas.  I know that nearly everyone who paints eventually paints scenes like these I've posted here, because they are beautiful.  I will paint them as well, though probably for my private sketchbooks, more as a way of reliving the experience than with any though of offering the results for anything public.

High Horizontal

5x7 inches, torn and cut altered papers

This week I am relearning what I knew for years.  One of the best ways to understand something is to explain it for someone else.

I am part of a small group of artists who meet at a local senior center (that sounds bad, but isn't), who meet once a week for a couple hours to make art and talk together.  Most paint or draw, though one other woman has been experimenting with collage work.  Officially it is called Open Art Studio, but I have come to think of it as Art Play Date.

Anyway, I agreed to demonstrate how I have been using altered papers in collage work.  I plan to demonstrate how to create the papers with CitraSolv and National Geographic magazine photographs.  It occurred to me that making the papers doesn't really give people much of a start unless I also demonstrate some examples of how I have used the papers.   Which led me to the idea that I should make a small series of abstracts with just the altered papers, perhaps also demonstrate some sample compositions.  That's why I made this one.  I used cut and torn papers horizontally toward the top of the image, perhaps suggesting some sort of landscape - or not.  My dear husband says the squares destroy the suggestion of landscape, though I disagree. I plan to make another with horizontal elements toward the bottom of the paper as well, and one with vertical elements, radial composition, and so on.

I like this little abstract as it is, but I find myself constantly wondering, "What if?"  What if I use a spray adhesive instead of a glue stick or gel medium?  What if I varnished the piece with an acrylic top coat?  What if I stenciled something over the image, or added some texture, like corrugated cardboard? How about sprayed on webbing or a bit of gold leaf?  What if I tried duplicating the colors, textures in paint in a much larger format?

Probably the only way to learn the answers is to make a series of similar pieces and try out the ideas, which multiply like wire hangers in a dark closet once I get going.  But for now, I think I had better just make the demonstration pieces and let my fellow art playmates come up with some ideas of their own.