Palm Sunday in Narnia

Just a few videos and pics to brighten your day

A neighbourhood garden, up the road a few meters from our place. We’re near the top of the mountain so the steep slopes are all terraced, and the gardens are especially beautiful right now.

Happy Palm Sunday! It’s so beautiful here today, cool air and warm sun, spring flowers everywhere, even butterflies on the forest trail. I thought it might be nice to see a little of our Palm Sunday procession at the convent and I got some wildflower pics on the way to Mass this morning.

First, the results of our polls the other day are in. Thanks to everyone who clicked their preference. It looks like there is general agreement that we don’t need two big complicated posts every week.

And there’s room for a nice mix of topics;

So, that’s how we’ll carry on. An article a week, posted on (or as near as possible to) Wednesdays, plus a weekend post with just nice pics, easy-going art-related stuff, Italy-related stuff, gardening, cats, flowers… something cheerful, hey? Keep our spirits up.

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Palm Sunday in Narnia

The convent garden of the Consolatrici sisters - SSPX-affiliated, but still officially a diocesan-rite community - is on the opposite side of the mountain from us, with this incredible view of the Nera basin, the big valley where Terni is. Waaaaay off in the misty distance you can just make out Terni (where the Shadow lies… we don’t go there).

The convent was built in the 16th century by Capuchin Franciscan friars and for a long time was the mansion residence of one of Narni’s more celebrated figures, a classic 19th century gentleman adventurer, who brought back several valuable antiquities from his visits to Egypt - as one did back in the day - including the obelisk you can see in this video.

A few times a year we have liturgical processions, and we get to go inside the sisters’ beautiful gardens.

Very pleased to see the loquat tree I gave the sisters last year looking so happy and robust. Grew it from a seed of the fruits of the one in my garden in San Martino, but I had three of them and they were just getting too big for my tiny balcony here.

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Work

This is pretty much all I’ve been doing this week. There’s really only one way to learn how to do this, and that’s to just do it a lot.

This is the white pigment I bought in Florence. It’s going well, but you have to be careful not to put it on too thick. It’s basically not much different from painting with very thinned plaster. Patience, patience… a feather-thin stroke at a time…

This is the result of the patient approach. The pigment goes down almost invisible, translucent, so the colours from the underpainting can show through, and the transitions from shadow to bright white highlights is soft and gradual, with nuances and depth of colour and light.

When you get it right, this white has a truly otherworldly glow.

It’s a commission for a gold-ground Annunciation in the style of Simone Martini and Lorenzo Monaco, that is, in the late Italian Trecento, Gothic style.

These are the models I’m working from. You can see the gesture of the Virgin is a kind of standard of the period.

Trecento elegance.

And I’m trying to learn watercolour technique on the side, which is going less well…

This was also my first try using the new white pigment - Bianco San Giovanni - that can create some very beautiful effects, but is super tricky to learn. Also, I was trying to learn too many things at once, as I wrote about briefly here. Anyway… Just have to keep plugging away…Don’t get discouraged…

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Some wildflowers and gardens

The annual round of wildflowers - a science called Phenology - is like a parade through the year. First out are the tiny violets, then the next thing you know the hillsides are covered in anemones, and spring has truly begun.

The very first field poppy this year. They’re mostly May/June, so April 2nd is very early.

The wooded trail between the Castle and the convent is beautiful at all times of year, but the spring is truly magical. The earth is carpeted in cyclamen, and they’re just getting started now.

And on the way home, I like to take the lower forest trail that takes you through the sunny sloped meadows, that right now are covered in anemones.

I was surprised to see some early butterflies along the trail but they were moving too fast to get a picture. Still plenty of wild asparagus that you can just pick and eat as you go along. The blackthorn is almost finished flowering, but when it’s in full bloom it looks like big patches of white mist in the forest. Next we’ll have the hawthorne, and the wild crab apple and damson plums are about to burst out.

It’s really the magical time of year.

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Thanks for reading to the end. If you would like to see some of my “real” work, my painting, you can click on my Ko-Fi page, Hilary White; Sacred Art, here, where you can also drop a few coins in the tip jar if you enjoyed this.

Right now this blog is not directly monetised, and painting and donations from supporters and patrons are my sole source of income. If you sign up to be a monthly patron, you can join my private patrons-only chat group on Signal.

You can also follow me at Hilary White: Sacred Art on Facebook and see a little hint of the Old Hilary White; journalist being cranky on Twitter too. Many thanks to all who have contributed to make it possible to keep working - the “struggling artist” thing doesn’t last forever, but it is a struggle for a while. Stay tuned.

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