Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
Queueing isn't something that comes naturally to Kiwis, there aren't enough of us to form a decent example of one.
So naturally I arrived totally unprepared for the Uffizi Gallery. Turns out you have to book online weeks in advance to avoid the dreaded queue, and of course I would have done that if I'd known.
What else should a sketcher do then, for almost 2 hours while waiting to enter one of the worlds most impressive art galleries? Get out the sketchbook of course!
The wait is worth it though, great to see in the flesh so many amazing works only previously seen in books. I took a break after a few hours of intense art ogling to sketch the view over the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio.
Finally a sketch inside our hotel, Hotel Bretagne, just a block or so along the river from the Uffizi. A bit of fluke to find this place at last minute, we were miraculously upgraded to a rather palatial room complete with frescoed ceiling! Apparently once the room of Napoleon's brother, Luigi Bonaparte, King of Holland. A bit like sleeping in a Renaissance museum but with nice helpful staff, it totally made the whole Florence experience.
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