Learning new skills

This is one good reason to have internet access at your agritourisimo in Italy. http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-sbc&p=making%20italian%20coffee&type=

We we're sure how to use the only coffee maker in the kitchen.........a small stove-top expresso maker, called a Moka pot. When I got online I found this you-tube video.

it's great to have wireless although right now this one comes and goes. Hopefully, it will be ON all the time later.

Italy 2008... wow-wee

I'm not leaving home, I'm taking it with me. Or that's the way it looks as I pack up my clothes, laptop, and electronic/camera stuff for a month in Italy.

So far nothing has been written in stone about what I'm taking. It's just all laying out here on the guest room bed waiting to be closed and finalized for sure. You ask.....didn't you say one time you're never taking two (2) checked bags to Europe again? Well, yes, I did, several times. BUT, in thinking this over with the 50# rule for checked bags, I decided that a small bag extra would be a good idea for possible overflow coming and going. It will also come in handy for trips on a train (ask me how I know that one). Okay, okay, it's just an excuse, but a very plausible one as big bags on trains are not a good thing.

Being there for a long time, we may want to go farther afield a time or two and stay over night so the smaller bag will work.........and if not, then it is easy to loop the handles over the larger bag with wheels. The laptop bag holds the laptop, all the camera gear, toiletries and a t-shirt. Who knew how many extras you can have when you have to have all those chargers that go with the Nuvi with European maps, I-pod, phone, two cameras and lenses. Hum...gotta fit in all the vouchers and other stuff that pertains to the trip and a book or two..............where oh where is it all going?

We leave here for the Houston airport Tuesday morning for an afternoon flight..........so there is a little time to take stuff out if needed, or heaven help me if I think of anything more to add.

Casa Rondini, here we come!

Another Colony Painting

I finally got the pictures out of my camera last night of the work I brought home from colony. I haven't had a spare moment to try to get through with my last canvas. Boo Hoo...with the ways things are going it will be here waiting for me when I return from Italy mid June.

This particular on is the one I mentioned being a little different from my usual paintings. In that I don't have such a direct landscape reference. I tried my darndest to NOT have a horizon line but when I turned it around as I painted it just looked better this way and seems to still have a horizon of sorts. I have no idea where some of these come from. Our visiting artist who comes around while we're painting to discuss our work with us, thought it suggested American Indian or western symbols. I suppose in some ways she might be right. You have to look close at images like this one on the internet to see the pencil markings and tracings running throughout some areas. AND, what could the big circle denote? I could go looking/searching but I know that many civilaztions used circles as symbols.

SO, with that said, the tentative (man, I hate being tentative) title for this 40 x 30" acrylic on canvas is Symbol Tracings. Also, noted..maybe a tiny bit got cut off at the bottom of the image.