Princess Venezia
Italy has graced the world with many wonderful gifts: beautiful music, timeless frescos, and tasty food immediately come to the front of my mind. Seriously, is anyone truly surprised that food would be in the top three of an Angela list? :) In addition to delicious cuisine, Italy is also the birthplace of real-life muppet-dogs called Spinone Italiano. Spinoni are just delightful dogs. Their appearance is hilarious and their demeanor is beyond sweet. All Spinoni sport expressive eyebrows and unkempt goatees. Their deepest desire is to rest at your side and gaze soulfully into your eyes. I should know, we own five. Our pack of Spinoni inspire joy in our hearts on a daily basis and this week they also inspired art.
Princess Venezia, 2020
Charcoal pencil and chalk on pastel paper
9” x 12”
The temperature has become quite cold here over this past week, hovering around 35ºF. A bright layer of hoarfrost adorns the scenery in the morning hours and the sweet smell of wood smoke hangs in the air. This cold has a magical way of drawing everyone in our household to the fire. The whole family, be they four legged or bipedal, congregates to bask in the warm glow of the fireplace in the “Great Room.” All of our dogs especially enjoy warming themselves by the fire during these cold winter months. It was while the whole gang lay about the living-room, in various states of repose, that I decided to snap a few photos. Zia adores attention of any kind and struck several poses for me during my little Spinoni photo shoot.
Whenever I work from photos, I like to use gesture drawing as a tool to help me pare down my list of potential subjects to my top favorites. This allows me to quickly test drive subjects and angles to get a feel for how enjoyable they are to render before I invest a bunch of time and energy committing to one specific image. After reviewing my pics and gesturing a few, I determined that Zia was my girl! Zia’s poses were very regal and “classic” looking so I selected a very classic technique to match.
I chose to render Zia in charcoal pencil and white chalk on a colored ground. This is a traditional approach that has been used for hundreds of years and one that became quite iconic during the Renaissance. I felt this technique not only exemplified the classical air of my subject but was also a fitting nod to her name-sake, the Italian city of Venice. To achieve this iconic look I selected a piece of sand-colored Canson pastel paper. The sand-colored ground started me off with a lovely neutral base that was also reminiscent of Zia’s brown roan coat. This particular paper came in a multi-colored pack which has turned out to be very convenient. You simply flip through the pages to find a color that strikes your fancy. If, during the process of your drawing, the selection doesn’t do it for you, then just pull out another one to try.
Interestingly, I discovered that layering the chalk highlight layer first and building the charcoal lines on top yielded the best result. This is actually the opposite of how I typically use charcoal and white chalk. My normal approach, with newsprint paper, is to render my dark values first and save my ultra-white highlights for the very last. Every session holds its own little surprises, but that is, after all, what test-strips and drafts are for. In the end, all of that testing was totally worth it because the final result turned out exactly as I had hoped! Zia looks quite distinguished and the drawing itself has a very historic vibe.
To enhance your viewing this week I thought I would provide a little Italian mood music. This song entitled Più Di Te (More of You) is one of my favorite Italian worship songs of all time. The track is by Davide Di Lecce, an Italian Contemporary Christian Musician. The entire album (also entitled Più Di Te) is wonderful and definitely worth a listen. Davide Di Lecce’s music is very genuine and powerful, progressing from quite humble worship climaxing in a joyful celebration loudly proclaiming his love for God. And let’s face it, everything is just cooler in Italian. ;)
Più Di Te Lyrics in Italian/English
Eccomi sono qui (Here I am, I am here)
Qui per te (Here for you)
Riempimi in profondità (Fill me deeply)
Ho fame di te (I hunger for you)
Le mie mani alzo a te (My hands I lift high to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
La mia vita offro a te (My life I offer to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
Eccomi sono qui (Here I am, I am here)
Qui per te (Here for you)
Riempimi in profondità (Fill me deeply)
Ho fame di te (I hunger for you)
Le mie mani alzo a te (My hands I lift high to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
La mia vita offro a te (My life I offer to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
Più di te (More of you)
Più di te (More of you)
Nel mio cuore (In my heart)
Oh Signore (Oh Lord)
Più di te (More of you)
Più di te (More of you)
Nel mio cuore (In my heart)
Oh Signore (Oh Lord)
Le mie mani alzo a te (My hands I lift high to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
La mia vita offro a te (My life I offer to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
Più di te (More of you)
Più di te (More of you)
Nel mio cuore (In my heart)
Oh Signore (Oh Lord)
Più di te (More of you)
Più di te (More of you)
Nel mio cuore (In my heart)
Oh Signore (Oh Lord)
Prendi posto Oh Dio (Take your place/seat oh God)
Al centro del mio cuore (At the center of my heart)
Al centro della vita che (At the center of my life that)
Voglio offrire a te (I desire to offer to you)
Prendi posto Oh Dio (Take your place/seat oh God)
Al centro del mio cuore (At the center of my heart)
Al centro della vita che (At the center of my life that)
Voglio offrire a te (I desire to offer to you)
Voglio offrire a te (I desire to offer to you)
Più di te (More of you)
Più di te (More of you)
Nel mio cuore (In my heart)
Oh Signore (Oh Lord)
Più di te (More of you)
Più di te (More of you)
Nel mio cuore (In my heart)
Oh Signore (Oh Lord)
Le mie mani alzo a te (My hands I lift high to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
La mia vita offro a te (My life I offer to you)
Mi arrendo (My surrender)
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