Street seen from the steps of the music school
This is a drawing of the view down the hill, done from the steps of the music academic right down the street from the Piazza Grande. Across the street is an antique bookstore, the civic museum, and an art gallery. The church is the background is the Chiesa di San Francesco, where there’s a great bar (next to the church, not in it) and a scenic overlook. Drawing this took several days. The first day it rained, and I didn’t get much done. The second day I finished the line drawing. The third day I decided to go back to do an inkwash. I went each of these times around 4pm, because is when the orchestra at the music academy practices. Unfortunately, this is also the time in the afternoon when it likes to rain, so I kept having to book it down the hill (I don’t like being at the top of the town when there’s lightning nearby).
A walk in Campagna:
On the walk through the country, Montepulciano in the background
Today I went on a hike with people from the school through the countryside to Montechiello. This is a very small town of about 400 people about 7 kilometers from Montepulciano. You could say that it was both very hot and very hilly. The worst part was when we were one hill away, about level in elevation with the town, but still with a valley to descend to and and equivalent hill to walk back up. But it was definitely worth the walk. Especially since we had a van to drive us back.
Pigeon with shadow at Montechiello
I took a picture of the main church, and realized later that I’d caught a pigeon making perfect “bird shaped” shadow on the wall. So far this is one of my favorite photos from the trip!
The only other exciting thing today was that I finally bought a Italian-English dictionary. It’s definitely geared toward people learning English, with a large section on English grammar. I’m going to actually spend some time reading the dictionary.
Ciao