Piana del Fucino e Vallelonga

Piana del Fucino e Vallelonga – Abruzzo, Italy
It has been a while since I was able to do some outdoor sketching. The drawing was done on site and the colouring was added later at home using a photograph and some notes as reference. It was also the last page in my moleskine pocket notebook, which I had started back in 2008!

Italian sketches

Every time we get to go on holiday I always make big plans on things I’m going to do, especially related to sketching outdoors. Every time I pack my bag with too many colours, pens, sketchbook, and all I can think I might need. And promptly, most of them remain unused and never see the light. This time, I took advantage of the fact that we were travelling just with hand luggage and took with me only the basics: my tiny  homemade watercolour box, my tiny concertina book, one water brush, a pencil and a gel pen. And it worked. The weather hasn’t been great and the time I had to sit and draw was very limited. I only managed to do two very quick sketches, one in Rome, while waiting for the tram, and one in Pisa, while waiting for my girlfriends. Talking about killing time while waiting…

On a sunday afternoon

The good thing when my little falls asleep in the car, is that I have time to sketch, read and do all the relaxing stuff that would otherwise be neglected and replaced by cleaning, tidying up and so on. As long as I have what I need with me, which is fortunately 99% of the time, I enjoy these rare moments very much.
Yesterday afternoon, we were on our way to Heathrow airport to pick up a certain someone from his weekend away in Rome…
We left home early, she felt asleep, so I stopped in a residential road nearby the airport and did some sketching. Apart from the constant noise of plane engines (I do wonder if people who leaves here are used to it!), it was a perfect sunny afternoon.