Sunday 3 October 2010

Enchanted Forests

Bosco di Ficuzza


For the past two weeks I have been out and about visiting some of the most beautiful parts of Sicily.  An old friend came to stay with me and we decided to be intrepid travellers/tourists, packing  picnics and setting off in my little car.  Some places I already had visited and some were new to me, all were exceptionally beautiful. 
I wanted to make a record of all the places we went to, and here is the first one using my usual bits of treasure that I pick up,  photos and sketches.


Rocca Busambra

Ficuzza is a nature reserve and small village in the district of Corleone, an ancient oak forest stretches for miles and miles.  The first place you come to is the village of Ficuzza and it's Baroque hunting lodge,  we then followed a footpath up into the nature reserve, you can just see the footpath we followed in the bottom left of the photo.  We walked for several hours, so I think we deserved the coffee and cakes we had sitting in front of the hunting lodge when we got back. 

15 comments:

martinepittet said...

What a lovely sketch ! I love the layout and the details: This hunting lodge looks beautiful and the scenery is impressive from what can be seen on the photo!
Your oak leaves are very delicately rendered ! Congratulations!
And thanks for your visits to my blog and your kind comments !

Unknown said...

Martine's written everything I was going to.... I love it all!

Kate (Cathy Johnson) said...

How lovely!

Lucia B. said...

What a delightful drawing! This is a lovely page showing something of the thousands of wonderful places in Sicily. I especially like the combination of green and violet colours!

Dan Kent said...

I've always heard that Sicily is beautiful, and I see it's true. Love the leaves.

Mari Brown and Colourblob said...

I love your work, but I have to say this one (I have many) of my favourites, I just love the lay out of the page and the colours.
Beautiful work!

nanke's stuff said...

This is both beautiful and charming! nancy

lyn said...

Great blog! Beautiful artwork!
Continued success!

Sandra said...

Exquisite drawings! Thanks for the travel photo.

Alex said...

Gorgeous colors Cathy, and really beautiful photo too.
I love the details of the sketch, great looking leaves!

debra morris said...

Beautiful Cathy!

Gillian Mowbray said...

I do love the variation of subject matter that you find for your sketching - these are delightful - as always!

Unknown said...

Gorgeous place! And I love your sketchbook pages!

Anonymous said...

So much fun! Your sketch book page is so well done! I thought it interesting that you repeat the colors in the all three studies. I'm glad you had coffee and cakes, that's half the fun isn't it?

Jim Bumgarner said...

I really love that hunting lodge! And I like how you did the trees there as well. Nice work!