Back to London Streetscapes



Covant Market Place, London

Back to the streets of downtown London. Seems a little boring in camparison to Italy.... but I do really like the downtown here in London, Ontario. First one "Covant Market Place, London" completed on location last Sunday. Second one "Richmond Street, London" drawn from photographs, Woke up at 5am on Wednesday morning, so I thought might as well make constructive use of this time, so this is what I did.

Richmond Street

This is Richmond Street north of King Street. Szeminykei Kirwin Mackenzie Law Firm on left is a little modern, but makes an interesting contrast to the historic Richmond Tavern. This is what I have found out about this local watering hole ... the original building was constructed in 1852 and at the time was called the Revere House. 10 years later, the building was doubled in size and became known as the Richmond Hotel. This establishment has been continuously operating for over 150 years.

Venice, Italy, Streetscape

Another streetscape completed in Venice on location.

SS11, Venice, Italy

Venice, Italy, Streetscape

SS10, Venice, Italy

This was the the view cross the canal from the "Istituto Canossiano" in Venice, Italy.  The Institute is located in the historic centre of Venice in the Dorsoduro district, a wonderful place to stay. This drawing completed on location Sunday Oct 2.

Venice, Italy

Second half of vacation was spent in historic city of Venice. "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", "City of Canals. Venice is great architecture with canals, bridges and boats.  The city stretches across 117 small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon.  Venice is one of the most important tourist destinations in the world, due to the city's being one of the world's greatest and most beautiful cities of art. The city has an average of 50,000 tourists a day. So, some areas are extremely busy, but you could find quiet spots to draw. Attached are a couple of sketches from Monday Oct. 3.

Venice, Sketch Monday Oct 3

Another Venice Sketch Monday Oct 3

Cortona, Italy, Landscapes

In Cortona, we stayed at Casa Betania, which had a beautiful vista of surrounding coutryside. (second sketch) On Monday, September 26, we walked outside the city, for some landscape drawing. (first sketch) Cypress trees are symbolic of trusan landscape. "One cannot think of Tuscany without thinking of the magnificent cypress tree, so quintessential and symbolic of the Tuscan landscape that it has adopted the name of "The Tuscan cypress tree. Although this is a somewhat fitting name, it is however grossly incorrect as its real place of origin was almost certainly Persia or Syria and was brought to the Tuscan area by the mysterious Etruscan tribes-people many thousands of years ago who considered the plant to have mystical/supernatural connections." read more The Tuscany region is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world, with its magnificent scenery of rolling hills, hilltop towns villages and vineyards.

View of church and fort on hilltop

View from garden patio at villa

Cortona, Italy, Streetscape

Another streetscape completed on location in Cortona Italy.

SS08 Cortona, Italy

Cortona, Italy, Streetscape

Once I got a feel for Cortona I looked for streetscapes to draw. Not only did I have to find an interesting street and architecture, but I had to find a shady spot to sit, where I wasn't in the way of traffic, rather difficult on those narrow streets.  Weather was perfect our whole trip, too hot to sit in sun, but perfect when sitting in the shade. Drawing completed on location.

SS07 Cortona, Italy

Cortona, Italy

Arrived on Saturday, Sept 24 in the afternoon and had time for a walk about Cortona to get familair with this hilltop city. Sunday was first full day in Cortona and I spent the all day drawing and sketching. Attached are two of the sketches. You either walk up or you walk down, can't get lost. Each sketch took a hour to hour and half.

Cortona, looking down at rooftops

Cortona, looking up a narrow street

About Cortona - "Believe it or not, Cortona, was a well-known Umbrian hill town before Frances Mayes wrote about renovating her house, “Casa Bramasole”, near here. (Under a Tuscan Sun). Cortona is a small but fascinating city in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany, central Italy, situated on a commanding hill, and overlooking Lake Trasimeno. Its cyclopean walls reveal its Etruscan origins. It was one of the twelve cities of Etruria and in its vicinity many ruins and Etruscan tombs may be seen."

No computer for 2 weeks

I consider that a real vacation, I didn't touch a computer for over 2 weeks, lots and lots of sketching and drawing with this trip - Novack Avid Traveller "Artists in Italy" lead by Kevin and Daphne Bice. I highly recommend this type of travel... great combination of scheduled events/dinners/etc with lots of free time to what we want, when we want.

I managed to do 8 finished drawings on location and about 35 sketches from Cortona, Florence, Ravena and Venice. I will post some samples in next few days/weeks. Unfortunately, back to reality means back to work and I have lots of work to catch up on. One more day of holidays, so we will play golf this afternoon... 'cause the temperature is going to be 25 degrees and sunny! Speaking of golf...  this past summer I started taking a small sketch book with me when golfing (as seen in many of my posts). I spent my waiting time sketching golf holes and I just realized how much that helped me in "seeing and drawing faster".