Venice in Pastel

After all the art documentaries I have been watching, some of which included beautiful paintings done in Venice, I was inspired.

I got out my little, purple velvet, photo album that I put together after my first trip to Italy in December of 1996. My parents were living in Pakistan in '96 and instead of spending two days on either side of the trip in transit, they decided my sister and I should meet them for Christmas in Italy. (wahoo!)

It was a strange time for me, having just gone through a very difficult break-up, but Italy was amazing (of course) and very healing. My crying stopped and I fell in love again, but this time it was with Italy. We spent our time in Florence and Venice with a lovely day trip to Siena. I remember thinking on that very first trip, I could live here! I had done a lot of traveling and loved many places but that was the first time I'd thought that. The connection was there from the beginning.

Here is the pastel (below), with a watercolor underpainting, that I did over the weekend. Although, I didn't end up covering up much of the watercolor! Sometimes you have to let go of your plan and just let things happen the way that they are meant to. A good life lesson ...

For things to reveal themselves to us,

we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Venice, Italy

Pastel and watercolor June 2011

Here are some photos from my old Minolta that I pulled out of my little velvet album and scanned this morning. It was freezing when we were in Venice, by the way. Part of the canal froze, fountains froze ... My mom said she had never been so cold. (And we'd lived in Alaska when I was little.) Nothing like a Siberian cold front to make things interesting.

Much to my family's dismay, I was determined to take a gondola ride, so the gondolier (who I am sure thought we were nuts) piled us up with blankets and off we went.

Venice Italy December 1996

35mm film camera

We have more possibilites available in each moment than we realize.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Hope you are all having a beautiful week!!!