Fun at the Villa

Sunday October 19th - Sunday October 26th

So I finally decided that even though doing daily posts is a great idea, since we're no longer traveling around Rome or Sicily it seems a little boring (for anyone who reads my blog) and a whole lot of work (for me) to keep doing the daily posts. Instead of doing that, I'm just going to post a weekly review and go over all the cool stuff I've been doing each week.  Anyhoo, this week was pretty relaxed and we spent a lot of time in both Italian class and painting. Because I like being rebellious sometimes (and was inspired by all the Greek and Roman sculptures),  I decided to soak paper in water, sculpt it into fruit, and then color it instead of painting on a flat surface! It was a lot of fun, and I used rocks on the inside of the paper to help stabilize the fruit and to keep in from mushing together before it was dry. Once it was dry, I just left the rocks in there because the paper shrank and molded itself around the rocks. I wish I could take the fruit home with me, but because there's rocks in them it's probably not a good idea to try to bring them back in my suitcase (so I think I'll find someone to give them to). Other than painting class, we made a couple of trips around the area, and one day Rosella was able to get us to this one town to explore a castle (why can't I ever remember the names of any town anywhere????). The castle was overlooking the lake, and because it was foggy that day it was really cool being able to see the fog melt from the water as the sun made it's way out from behind the clouds. After the week was over, we stopped by the chocolate festival in Corciano, and while we were there too early on Saturday, we were able to go on Sunday and get lots and lots of chocolate! When we first got there we bought these tickets for only 5 euros and after that we were able to go into 11 or 12 places with the tickets and try a sample of chocolate from each. Afterwards I was really full, but every bit was worth it. I also got a couple of bottles of chocolate liquor to take home with me when the trip is over. Even though this week was quiet, I still had a lot of fun and I think it was a good balance of class, relaxation, and fun.
  
Monday October 27 - Thursday October 30th

Dave got here on Monday and I was really excited to start taking classes from him. I love photography and it's my go-to when I'm too busy with work and school to be able to paint, sculpt, or draw. The first day in photography we got to walk up to Corciano and practice with sunburts and take pictures of the beautiful light around sunset. I feel like I got some pretty nice pictures and I know quite a bit more about my camera than I did before going up to Corciano. While we were just beginning our photography class, we were still doing our watercolor class, and our assignment for the week was of our choosing. Since I wanted something challenging (but still wanted to do a horse) I chose to do a buckskin horse with a native American kneeling on the ground next to him. I don't usually do people so the painting was a challenge, but it was a lot of fun and I feel like it's one of my best paintings yet (even though there's still a lot of room for improvement too!). Aside from painting and photography, we took a trip to Norcia (and a couple other towns that I don't know the names of) and drove through the mountains. I didn't realize that there were actually real mountains here in Italy, and it made me so happy to go to them. Several of them had snow at the tops and one of them just kept going up and up into the clouds. With the fall colors and falling leaves it was so beautiful! Near the little mountain town there were lots of sheep, cows, and donkeys, and even highland ponies (or highland horses, which is technically what they are). We stopped for several minutes and took pictures of them, and one of them even came up to me so I could pet it. This week was fun, and I'm excited to leave for Florence tomorrow morning!