I joined a Sketch Rome activity. Kelly Medford leads urban sketching activities in Rome. She’s originally from the USA but studied art in Florence and has been living and working as an artist in Italy since 2004.

We met at Piazza Mattei by Bernini’s Fontana delle Tartarughe.

We were a small group. A woman from the Netherlands, a woman from Portugal and me. Kelly provided us each with a handmade sketchbook and we borrowed stools and drawing and painting supplies.

We did some warm up drawing activities then moved onto Piazza Portico di Ottavia where we worked on light and shade in pencil.

My effort:

We then moved down to the lower area near the Templi di Apollo

The time flew by and I never managed to get around to doing any wash or watercolouring, just pen work.

We had to do our drawing as a continuous line which resulted in wonky lines and failing to get the perspective right.

After that effort, I returned to Piazza Mattei to get gelato from Grezzo. They make a raw chocolate gelato which I would describe as dry in the same sense as wine, not sweet and not cream tasting, almost like eating cocoa. It’s quite interesting. The nocciola was less successful, in my view, not very hazelnut flavoured. (Donated another wafter to the pigeons.)

Back at the apartment, I tried drawing the temple columns again and not as continuous line. I think the effort resulted in better perspective.

Last year I started watching Bake Off Italia, which is Italy’s version of the Great British Bake Off or Great British Baking Show as it is called in Canada. I’ve been watching it again this year. In Italy, the technical challenge requires the contestants to reproduce a pastry by the master pastry chef, Iginio Massari. One of his shops is two blocks from the apartment. I’m not a big fan of pastry but I had to try something.

I bought a torta sbrisolona al cacao e cioccolato. Torta can be cake or pie or tart in Italian, But this torta from northern Italy, specifically Mantova, is more like a cookie as it is dry, crumbly and crunchy. It is full of nuts—mandorla (almond), pistacchio (pistachio) and peacan.

It’s not very big but rich. I expect I will eventually eat the whole torta.