Watercolor Workshop Day 1

So I finally had my first art class last night. My teacher, Marcia, actually went to Cal State Fullerton and then UCLA for the rest of her degrees. She spent her 3 yr abroad and fell in love with it. She has lived here since the late 70's and goes back to LA every year to see her family. She has been teaching the Florence and Chianti Watercolor class for eight years (this is my class) so basically, she has one pretty sweet life.

On Saturday, my class of nine girls, leaves for a castle in Chianti, where we will be staying for a week! Our typical day will be as the following: breakfast at nine, hike out to towns in Tuscany (many of which dont even sell coca cola they are so remote), paint for 4 hours, hike back to the castle where we'll have free time until dinner to sit by the infinity pool, draw, relax ect, dinner will alway be completemented by good wine of the region (evidently the castle has its own private stash we get to dip into, sorry you're not here to enjoy this Dad...and too bad I so prefer white wine to red...guess I'll learn to like Chianti after a week of good stuff-ie not 2 buck chuck or any boxed wine (Allie, Nicole, and Rachel...I hope you've updated from the boxed wine party we had last year in our apartment to something better this year....ps how is life in LA?) and then after dinner we'll watch movies (anyone who knows me knows I LOVE movies). We'll be watching Italian and American made ones! According to Marcia, if we'll drink wine and get "as happy as a lark", watch these movies and just get to know eachother. [Sidenote: a girl from Lucy's class at Menlo is in class, Gayland Avery. Crazy how you run into people on the other side of the world.]

While I've never done watercolors in an academic sense besides the couple of portraits I did in AP Art (like the one in your office Dad), Im really excited to learn something completely new. Watercolors scare me because you have to be okay with starting over. It isn't like oil painting where you can move the paint around on the canvas and it takes forever to dry. Nope. Once you draw that line, it's there forever. So I'll have to let go of my perfectionism and embrace the trail and error process I've learned to love/hate during science labs.

Views from the Arno River and Ponte Vechhio at Sunset



We had a nice dinner with the entire LDM art school on the river bank next to the ponte vechhio at sunset with the best and only white wine I've been able to get my hands on so far. Tonight we're going to a Tibet themed photo exhibit at the fortress. Tomorrow I've planned a 4th of July potluck for my apartment (Im making burgers). It's going to be crazy fun. Alright, I'm off to enjoy the day. You should get off the computer and do so too.

Ciao!
Jacqueline