Tuscany 2012 – Lucca

With Lucca so close, it becomes our first day’s destination and our home base for immersion into Italian window shopping, gelato, and pizza.  A number of churches present stunning examples of black-and-white Romanesque facades, often with a wedding-cake stack of arches in front. The duomo, c. 1200, is a prime example. I almost never make it inside. The exterior is replete with patterns, running up the sides of doorways, twisting around columns, gracing the friezes atop the arcades and encircling the inlaid roundels. The floor of this cathedral has large areas of inlaid stone and many more patterns. It is here that the idea strikes me to start making quick sketches of some of these simple, yet effective borders. Before the day is out I know what I am going to paint this trip: beautiful Tuscan skies enclosed in borders that in so straight forward a way epitomize for me Italian Romanesque and Renaissance design.

I want to thank my companion Michael Frommeyer for being the world’s best travel buddy, if only for putting up with me whenever I say: “Wait a minute. I need to sketch this.” Here he is during our trip’s first lunch in the oval Piazza Anfiteatro, which took its shape from the Roman amphitheater that once stood here. And our meal is a great welcome to italy. Michael has fresh noodles with porcini then bacala (salt cod) with ceci (chickpeas), while I have homemade ravioli in a meat sauce then coniglio (rabbit) and olives.

I want to thank my companion Michael Frommeyer for being the world’s best travel buddy, if only for putting up with me whenever I say: “Wait a minute. I need to sketch this.” Here he is during our trip’s first lunch in the oval Piazza Anfiteatro, which took its shape from the Roman amphitheater that once stood here. And our meal is a great welcome to italy. Michael has fresh noodles with porcini then bacala (salt cod) with ceci (chickpeas), while I have homemade ravioli in a meat sauce then coniglio (rabbit) and olives.

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