I spent a day walking through the streets of Fira along twisting, winding paths, up and down steps. There wasn’t a corner I turned that wasn’t worth sketching.
Iron Gate along the Caldera
Fira’s white buildings, brightly painted doors, and overflowing baskets of flowers make Santorini a unique place to sketch and paint.
Blustery Santorini
I awake early and hop out of bed, motivated by my excitement of being on Santorini. I look out the window in hopes of seeing the rest of the island, but it’s difficult to see past the pension next door. Wishing for higher ground, I remember a metal ladder bolted to the side of the building right outside our door. With little hesitation, and no signs telling me not to, I climb up on the roof. It’s windy-really windy-with the smell of rain in the air. But the view is much clearer up here. The island stretches out before me to the east, tapering down to meet the sea off in the distance. I see a woman on the roof next door hanging laundry. The wind pulls one sheet off the clothesline and nearly off the roof. She hurries over to retrieve it, smiles at me, and returns to her work.
The Sunlight on Santorini
On Santorini my focus was to capture the island’s unique quality of light. By focusing on the shapes of shadows, I made use of the white of the page and defined the composition with washes of color. If I had used black lines to describe the buildings, I would have lost the uniqueness of Santorini.
Fira, Santorini
Seeing Fira from the top of the caldera, and looking down at the Aegean far below, is an even more powerful experience than was looking up at it from the ferry. Most of the small city streets are free of cars and barely wide enough to handle two-way pedestrian traffic. My favorite street, which is narrow enough to be called a path, traces along the edge of the caldera for several kilometers. Homes, restaurants, and hotels line this street, and all have extraordinary views. Fira’s white buildings, brightly painted doors, and overflowing baskets of flowers make this a unique spot.
Donkey Caravan, Santorini
(Excerpt from my book, The Artist on the Road: Impressions of Greece)
After many hours at sea, with two quick stops along the way, my excitement builds as Santorini comes into view. Passengers with cameras gather in anticipation on the port side of the ferry. We also ready our cameras and find a good spot along the railing. At first, Santorini looks like many other shallow islands we’ve seen pushing up from the sea. But when we get closer, I see a mountain looming large on the far side. Where the land meets the sea, sharp cliffs rise up a thousand feet into the blue sky. This is the caldera, where the central part of the volcano broke off and collapsed into the Aegean. Striations of colored rock, stone, sediment, and lava make the island a lopsided layer cake. As we ferry closer, the white city of Oia covers the top like frosting. The city contains no storied buildings and gathers close to the earth to avoid slipping off the caldera.
As we sail into the center of the five volcanic islands that make up Santorini, the top of the caldera rises above us. Quarter-moon shaped Thera is the largest of the islands. The city of Fira comes into view and I’m amazed that it’s so high up. The famous switchback trail, which takes travelers by donkey to and from the port below, is visible snaking along the cliff.
I’m glad we’ve finally arrived. I feel as though I’ve been out at sea a week. The ferry spins around, as it did in Naxos, and backs into to the port. We dock at Athinios and stand on the aft deck watching the gangway lower. During the boat ride, we scoured our travel guides for lodging and chose four possibilities. Pension Petros is the most promising, but we’ll be satisfied just to have a roof over our heads tonight. We certainly don’t want a repeat of our problems upon our arrival in Athens.
Our guidebooks say it’s possible to take the donkey caravan up the switchbacks to the top, but we don’t think much of that idea. Many proprietors are at the dock holding up handwritten signs for their hotels and pensions. We look for anything referencing Pension Petros, and finally see a middle-aged man holding up a sign for the place. He is, in fact, Mr. Petros himself. We get into his van, and he drives us up the switchbacks along the side of the caldera to Fira and Pension Petros. Along the way, I notice how Santorini, with its white buildings and blue-domed churches, differs from Attica.
The Erechtheion with its Porch of the Karyatids
Once I reach to top of the Acropolis, I find a good place to sit and start drawing the Erechtheion, focusing on the Porch of the Karyatids. I see five beautiful stone ladies who will keep me company while I paint. Halfway through my first painting, a Greek woman walks over and waves her arms upon seeing my drawing. I don’t understand her Greek, but her reaction is telling. Then she reaches into her bag and pulls out an apple, hands it to me. I’ve never had anyone express their appreciation of my work so thoughtfully.
I change locations and begin another drawing. This time the entire Erechtheion is my focus, with the Porch of the Karyatids to one side. A teenage girl comes near and sits beside me watching me draw. She’s completely silent. After a half hour, she looks at me, smiles and thanks me, then slips away.
Chateau St. Jean Garden Sculpture
Seven members of the drawing group Rural Sketchers of Sonoma County met today at Chateau St. Jean Winery in the Valley of the Moon, Sonoma County, CA. The weather was perfect, the gardens were beautiful, and I drew this statue that was near a fountain. I used an SKB “James Jean” pen with my moleskin sketchbook. The SKB pen is perfect for drawing because of a feathery line quality  can be achieved with a light, brush like stroke. I had some difficulty making the drawing look like a sculpture rather than a real person because the sculpture looked so lifelike.