The Glimpse

 

The people of Matera are white, all of them, even the tourists are white, there were no Asians, South East Asians, Blacks or Latinos; in this city of all white people I was the lone exception. I was looked at with curiosity each time I entered a shop  and then after a pause and an overcoming of diffidence, I was asked where I was from.

Then one day suddenly out of the blue, I saw this young lone Black woman walking along one of the streets with a lilt in her step. She had none of the tourist accouterments and she seemed very much at home. Her appearance against the pale, bleached walls of Matera was striking. And then I saw her yet again from the balcony, walking somewhere. I wonder who she is and what her story is.

.

.

.

.

.

#matera #materasketchbook #italy

Bologna

I have now learnt that in any trip to Italy, a visit to Bologna is imperative and it should come last. If you put Bologna somewhere in the beginning of your itinerary, the rest of the food you eat in all other places will simply never ever compare and it can kind of dampen your trip because whatever you eat anywhere else, however good it is claimed to be, you will keep thinking, "Ah but this tasted so much better in Bologna!".

While the names of a lot of Italian food is familiar to me, I would not have had a very good idea what it really was or how it should be eaten, so I booked a rather expensive food tour with a 5 star rating and rave reviews and caught an early train from Rome to be in Bologna on time. When I landed at Bologna at 8am, I went to a café and ordered a Mortadella sandwich and a coffee, and that was my first taste of Bologna mortadella and it was so exquisite and so good that had I not enlisted for a food tour I would have eaten another.

Bologna has all the things that I love - deep, warm hues of red, pink and orange, arches and of course I needlessly say it again, the best food ever.  (I would rate the food we get in India as very good, as good as any you will get anywhere in Italy, except for Bologna which is a class apart, a small glimpse of what food in heaven must taste like if we do our good deeds to get there).

The food tour was an excellent one where I got a taste of everything I needed to taste including perfect al dente Spaghetti, different cheeses with balsamic vinegar, a slice of horse meat, wines and the best of all, Gelato at a place called Santo Stefano where I died and went to heaven and would have happily stayed there. No other Gelato will equal what I ate at that place.

After the food tour I wandered through the arched alleys, basking in the warm hues and then stopping for more coffee and desserts, each one a small masterpiece. How lucky are people who are born and live in Bologna and who have their lives revolving around the food there. It was with some reluctance that I caught my train back to Rome all the while fervently promising myself that I would return to Bologna once more.

.
.
.
.
#bologna #italy

On the train to Matera

These are some drawings in my sketchbook of my train journey to Matera.

When I saw the Italian countryside landscape for the first time, I understood better what the old Renaissance masters had painted.  My usual bold charcoal drawings did not work very well for these landscapes. I felt it needed something softer and more poetic. Derwent graphite with its muted tones worked very well for the rolling hills and Olive trees. However I wanted to experiment with other media so I tried ink, my first foray into wet media.

My initial attempts at ink are reminiscent of how I use charcoal, my approach was the same, I let the fountain pen ink that I used literally gambol on different kinds of paper. It was pretty much hit and miss every time, some worked but most did not and there were many, many trials and errors for about two weeks (below). 

Then on a suggestion from a friend, I used a bottle of Sumi ink that had been gifted to me last year (one of those rare, thoughtful gifts that I could actually enjoy). I used tiny rectangles of cheap paper from a small notepad I had and strangely and much to my surprise it worked. The pictures had a print like quality to them which recreated the atmosphere that I wanted (below).

My long journey to Matera which began at 5 am went like this : Trastevere to Rome, Rome to Bari, Bari to Matera. Here are some of the sketches of my co passengers.

I felt compelled to redraw the sketch of the schoolgirl with red streaked hair and distinctive features into something larger. Her face reminded me of a Renaissance portrait. I think I should title the drawing of her as Sleeping Madonna (above).

While making these drawings I recall the sense of anticipation I felt sitting in the slow train which glided leisurely through the Olive groves and towards my destination.

There is a resumption of daily drawing over at Hello Every Sunday. We even have a brand new website with large images. Do meet us on Sundays to see our daily drawing progress at
HELLO EVERY SUNDAY.