Breathe Summer

I took a break from Florence and went for an adventure north of Italy and the southeastern part of France. My first stop was in Turin. I spent a night there and had enough time to visit the Cathedral believed to house the Holy Shroud, and the informative Cinema Museum. Turin after all, was the first Italian city to have brought in the moving pictures from France. After spending the morning sketching the open air market, it was time to head to Grenoble via Bla Bla Car.

I spent 6 days in Grenoble with my schoolmates painting, eating, painting, eating and painting and eating. Not to mention sleep. Grenoble is trapped between 3 enormous mountain ranges: Chartreuse, Belledonne and Vercors. This creates ample opportunity to paint landscapes. But it rained for 3.5 days leaving very little time to paint outdoors. So we stayed indoors to paint.

The Grenoble Museum is home to many great art pieces which made that visit exceptionally worth the while! :) Among my favourites are the room exhibiting works from the 17th, 18th band 19th century. And some of the beautiful displays includes works from Delacroix, Ingres and Rubens. There were many other works from artists like Guétal, Baader & Champaigne who are unheard of but own works of exceptional quality. An Art Jam or Rencontre Artistique was organised by a local artist, Flore Henocque, and we were invited to mingle with fellow artists: musicians, painters, illustrators, writers, photographers, etc. Grenoble is a small city compared to Paris, but for its size, I think the art scene is pretty good. :)

Finally, the journey home to Florence via Milan. And the most unexpected thing was to be able to see The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci at the Cenacolo Viciano. Usually, during the summer, one has to book a week in advance, but all I did was to ask if there was any cancelled bookings. And voilà !

Looking forward to see what other surprises this summer has for me. :)