What a month! I made a collage of all the work I did.
I sold ten paintings out of thirty, and made almost 400 dollars for endangered species conservation! There are several more of these paintings for sale. If you travel backwards on this blog, you can see which are available and which are not.
And I forgot poor Enza! 
Next month, I will be focusing on faces.
In 2006 Donald and I made two friends in Naples; Lucia and Alfonso. They are the parents of a good friend of ours, and they were conveniently just our age. When we needed a place to stay in Naples, they found a friend who rents an apartment. When our bags came up missing from the airport, it was Alfonso who went to the airport with us to try and solve the problem. They took it upon themselves to be our host and hostess, and they would have had us over for dinner every single night if we’d let them. Lucia, who is Pugliese, is an amazing cook. Every single thing we ate at her house was memorable and delicious. Donald hovered in her kitchen, sneaking peeks into her simmering pots, while the aromas fed our hunger. Alfonso and Lucia took us out to our first Napolitano pizzeria, where the pizza was amazing. We had a lot of fun with them, and they asked us to come back many times over the following years. I only made it back once. But we made friends forever. This picture is of the day we went to the flower vendor. He was selling flowers out of his Ape (pronounced AH-PAY) all dressed up in a peach colored suit. Alfonso bought each of us ladies flowers, and then a bunch of basil for dinner. I painted this today in memory of Alfonso who died at the beginning of this year, and of Donald who took such a wonderful reference photo for me.
This painting is not for sale.
Italy is known for its beautiful women. Naples is no exception. My husband took lots of pictures of pretty girls, here are a couple that were waiting along with us for a bus.
I will never forget that day; we planned to spend a weekend in Puglia with some friends. There was a bus that left the station every two hours that went to Foggia, the capital of Puglia, but we couldn’t find our bus stop. It was not there with all those orange buses, it was a private line.
I went to the ticket counter and asked for information, and the guy (with a strong Napolitano accent says to me) CHEEE ELLA PEEE.. We walked around for a while baffled, and went back to the same guy and told him “I don’t understand; please tell me again!” He finally wrote it down on a piece of paper. “CLP” Well that would have been totally obvious to someone who was a native born Italian! And then he pointed to the Tabaccaio across the street. “Go there” he said. We did, asked several people more questions, and eventually we found the stop before our bus came. It was just another exciting day in our Naples adventure.
$150.00 will bring these lovely girls into your home.
Even in Naples you can get a fancy horse and carriage ride! We found this driver taking a break, apparently getting an earful from someone, his mother? his wife?
One wonders.
This is another small painting, it measures only 5″ x 7″ I am asking $65 for it. All of the proceeds goes to a foundation for endangered species conservation
you can pay with the paypal button below or contact me for other arrangements. This price is only good until February.
I was captivated by this scene. A young couple is walking down one of the ancient, narrow, crowded streets of Naples. The young woman pushes a baby in a buggy and is carrying two big bags of groceries. The young man? He’s playing his accordion. For those of you that do not know, the accordion is a musical instrument with a big voice. It is not easy to play, you have buttons on one side, keys on the other, and a bellows in the middle. It is an instrument that does not really need accompaniment, a one man show.
Once upon a time, Neapolitan street minstrels wandered the streets, playing Italian music to tourists. But today’s Italian youth would rather play heavy rock, or rap. There are still street minstrels all over Naples, but they are not Italian. They are probably clandestini, or undocumented persons. It seemed strange to me at the time that the beautiful music known the word as being from Naples is played now by gypsies and Albanians. I imagine in their hearts they are Neapolitan and their children will be Italian.
This is a 9″ x 12″ watercolor painting. It is for sale for $150.00 until February, when the price will go up. Except for the postage and sales tax, all of the price goes to help endangered species. please use the paypal button below to buy: