Italy 2005

So, the only affiliation I have with Grinnell is through my friendship with Nancy. But I wanted to meet interesting intelligent people. And I did.

The Legacy of Ancient Greece and Rome in Italy

travel.davychen.com

March 21

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March 30

March 31, April 1

April 2, 3+

Sketch Book

Dogs of Italy

blog.davychen.com

emphasize violet tones; darken foreground column; add yellow hightlight

March 21 9:27am

adjust color and contrast; enhance fence shadow detail

March 21 9:09am

Palermo

Lost luggage, icky Alitalia food, and noisy hotel. Not quite the best start to this trip. But I found Italy to be strangely familiar and comfortable. It may be due to the strange mix of flora and fauna nearly identical to Southern California, and concrete buildings similar to Taiwan.

Atrium outside of the mosaics. Peaceful, bright, neutral, minimally adorned. Then when you walk inside. Yowsers! Cacophony of color and detail. Pop-Rocks candy for the eyes.

Chorisia speciosa
Family Bombacaceae
Floss Silk Tree

Strange alien looking tree from Brazil with green spiky bark, pear shaped avocado-like seed pods with silky puffy stuffing, like the stuffing in those disturbing Frankenstein-ian Build-a-Bear stores.

Shouldn't bins full of organs and body parts from stuffed animals scare children?

adjust brightness; darken foreground columns; add orange glow to lighting

March 21 9:30am

bring out color detail and brightness; darken ceiling, right wall; emphasize yellow highlights to balance left and right sides; add fake lighting to center grate for focus; reduce overblown lighting on right

March 21 9:38am

Palermo: church 1

Absolutely amazing mosaic tiled interior. Teeny tiny marble and glass tiles, set individually by hand. The gold ones are encased with clear glass so they do not tarnish. If people could do this hundreds of years ago, why can't the twenty first century tile guys finish my bathroom?

Palermo: same church 1, different angle

brighten wall, darken shadow detail in terra cotta for shape emphasis; add turquoise highlights to spout

March 21 10:26am

Monreale: en route to church 2

I found this water spigot quite witty. A lot of effort and thought went into making this. Somebody was having fun. I certainly was.

Monreale: town square

Very cooperative weather. Clear sunny skies, warm breezes. Perfect traveling weather.

enhance blue sky and clouds; bring out green foliage color; darken forground column and building wall; adjust yellow sunlight on buildings; fade out distant buildings

March 21 10:30am

match red hat to napkin holder; for a fee, I can digitally add or colorize hair, remove wrinkles

March 21 11:23am

Monreale: coffee talk

Less than 24 hours in Italy and we're already enjoying espresso at a café. Having deep intellectual conversations like, "Boy, we have the best name tags. Plastic, engraved, with color. None of those laser printed stickers or cheap crumpled office paper like the other tour groups here. I bet we make the other groups jealous with our great name tags. Woo Hoo! Go Team Go!"

remove extraneous building in background; reduce unimportant colors

March 21 11:29am

emphasize orange and red colors; brighten lighting in forground; paint in blue, desaturate, darken background elements for more depth

March 21 11:31am

enhance blue sky and clouds; adjust contrast of dome; bring out shadow detail in loggia; reduce impact of green foliage in forground

March 21 12:09pm

emphasize red, white, and blue colors- silly Americani tourists

March 21 12:18pm

Palermo: smack dab in the middle of the city

Where you can find a large number of geometric shapes in this building complex. Sphere, cone, triangle, square, cylinder, cube.

Palermo: disoriented Americans

Palermo: museum

Entablature chronicling the celebration of one of the first Hot Dog on a Stick franchises. This particular scene describes a trainee taking direction from her manager on the left. The customer does not have exact change, and the leave-a-penny, take-a-penny dish is unfortunately empty. This entablature is significant because it is the oldest known example of an employee trainee manual.

adjust contrast to bring out relief detail and shape; add fake stone coloration; remove window in background; darken background elements

March 21 12:47pm

crop out hand, distracting glass reflection; emphasize pink and green color

March 21 2:19pm

Palermo: cafeteria style lunch

Where I discovered that yes, there does exist a flavor of Fanta that is downright nasty. Stay away from the brown Fanta with the orange cap. Bleech.

bright blazing sunlight; additional warm glow to buildings in background

March 21 3:59pm

March 21 4:18pm

Palermo: going blind from the sun

Blah Blah. Something about Romans. Blah Blah. Ha Ha. Must laugh along with everyone else. Something about Religion. Blah Blah. Hey, I'm very hungry right now. I wonder if that bird is edible. Jet lagged. Sleepy.

Palermo: school children drawing

Inspiring. And sad that the last time I seriously sketched, these kids weren't even born yet.

scrunched up edge to show inside color; new balcony floor tile makes good photography background

Man Bag of Palermo

Next Day