My husband elegantly peels clementini in spirals. I peel them ineptly into ragged stars. I save the peels to draw. Some of these are on a tablecloth with an 18th century design of long-tailed poultry in a garden.

Saturday mornings, I frequently go to the Rialto market to buy fish. Saturday, we ate salmon. Yesterday, we ate spaghetti alle vongole at lunch, and clam chowder for dinner (and San Martin for dessert).

Evidently, I never posted the 2011 San Martin cookie drawings, so I am posting them now, a year late.

The quality of San Martin cookies is surely declining. I went out this afternoon (granted, a Sunday afternoon, after a serious acqua alta) to buy one and did not like what was on offer. Clearly, people with no sense of what the decorations should look like are making them. Tonolo was closed. Vizio Virtù had very arty ones, not gaudy-tacky enough. Rizzardini's were covered with tiny little puffs. One shop had sucking candies (for goodness sake!), not chocolates, on them. I finally settled for this one at the Rizzo in called dei Boteri. I have been drawing San Martin cookies since 2008 (see tag).

This is a link to my website

It had been hacked but is back now.

Waiting for the rally to begin. It was held in the 1870s farm town section of Living History Farms.

Here are some drawings I made this summer but did not get around to posting until now.

Little Grouting.









My only day at the beach this summer



TFW said, if I had made this drawing of beach umbrellas 100 years ago, it would have been an early modern masterpiece.

Shanghai


Beijing, Forbidden City


Badaling, Great Wall


Bouquet I received in Hebei


I was in China (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Hebei) from May 29 to June 5. It was a long way to go for such a short trip, but the circumstances of my trip were extraordinary. I did not have much opportunity to draw because my time was not really my own to organize, but I could not do nothing. I grabbed the time where I could. The drawings from the Forbidden City were done while walking at a brisk pace. The facade in Shanghai was drawn in 15 minutes. I drew the bouquet to help me stay awake.

I have not posted anything since returning from Australia and New Zealand. Now, in late April, I am finally getting around to posting my newest engraving, Apotheosis at Marston Mall. Because it was a commissionesd work for Iowa State University's College of Engineering, I did not write or show progress reports on LJ. But now that the edition is printed and delivered, I think it is alright to share it with the world. I drew on site in October, made the engraved plate in January to early March. The edition was printed in Venice in March and April.

The building is Marston Hall, completed in 1905. The facade featured the four Muses of Engineering, the four divisions of the college at that time. I brought them down to earth, and added eight additional Muses to reflect the current number of engineering divisions at ISU.

Flowers at Judy and Richard's beach house. Agapanthus is an amazing flower, and an interesting challenge to draw. Also, the pohutakawa, which I had never encountered before New Zealand, is remarkable.