Sketchbook Journeys - Italy: Day 10 (A Dreamy Little Lupia Landscape)

It was an overcast day in early spring when I did this page in my travel journal. Driving through the countryside near Lupia, we had turned off the main road onto a dirt track which led across the fields to an old farmhouse surrounded by outbuildings. Suzie and I sat snug in our little Fiat Panda, and contentedly drew the scene spread out before us.

10" x 7", ink & watercolor in Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook

I had been wanting to do a sketch of the trees that line the edges of the fields in that area. Periodically, the locals prune them so severely that nothing is left except the main trunk. All the branches then sprout from the center, giving the trees a distinctive look with thick, squatty trunks and branches growing wildly in every direction.

The sky was a dull gray that afternoon, but I tinted it a pale pink-y lavender in this tiny landscape.

9" x 2"

The soft colors of new spring grass and the blush of the first leaves on the trees, along with that lavender sky, give this little sketch a dreamy mood that reflects just how I was feeling that day.

Drawn and painted on location with a Pigma Micron 01 brown pen, Niji water brush, and watercolor paints from Utrecht, Holbein, and Winsor & Newton