Off to sunny Scotland??

It's a lovely sunny day and I am getting organised for going back to Scotland for 2 weeks. I always have mixed feelings about leaving here. (Perhaps I am turning into my dad , who never liked leaving home and always found a reason to go back to the farm mid week of the holiday and then we usually left on the Friday evening instead of staying till the Saturday morning. I think home was where he felt good , like a snail with its shell and I think I am the same.)
I will miss arriving  at my studio on my scooter, having waved to people on the way here. Then my flowers are looking really pretty just now and the poppies are out at the end of the street. I went for a coffee in my Saturday cafe and thought how different it  would be next week. (Then I asked the 2 girls working there if they would like to be part of my project: so that is another two to photograph.)
Maybe I am getting older  and I like my routine.
I will miss being stared at, because although it was a little disconcerting at first , I find back in Scotland I feel invisible. I like being greeted and greeting people on my way up town. I still get a thrill out of being called signora. And I like painting and drawing because it has become a big part of who I am.
Then there is the sun! Enough said!

But I should be back soon and I will likely have a great time with my family, despite the weather, so I should shut up and just post these photos of my street and Pisticci today.
(Just had phone call from daughter and my grandson has been telling his friends that I am coming to stay, aw shucks, now I want to go. Presumably Pisticci will still be here when I get back.)

My new project

In my delightful storybook blog I generally skip over the not so comfortable stuff. Who wants to know about worries , sleepless nights and running out of money.
I prefer to look on the bright side, but just incase, I have talked myself into a new project which could earn me some money, will likely earn me some appreciation ( just as good except you cant pay the bills with it.), will help improve my skills in drawing portraits, improve my confidence , and be something I would like to be remembered for.
I am not sure where the idea came from. No ideas are completely original, but in this case I have been very impressed by drawings I have seen by people I follow on Twitter. Like Katherine and a scottish guy who does the most wonderful drawings. Then I think I saw someone else who had written a book about doing 100 portraits in a month.
I had already drawn the three elderly gentlemen and sold one of them.
So it came into my head that I could draw 50 people from Pisticci. Then I could make small prints of the  the drawings, mount them together in a large frame and use it in exhibitions (Which I would like to do), advertising at markets ( people would stop to see folk they know) and maybe someone would even buy it for a shop or something.
I would also sell the drawings for 20 euros each to anyone who wanted their drawing.
Great idea, I thought , and before I could talk myself out of it I started telling people about it. I said It was a project that I wanted to do. I had to describe it in Italian and I know the word for project!
And before I knew it I had taken photos of 5 people. (And learned that it is better to take shots of people in groups because they are much more natural.)
You have no idea how much I have been wanting to do this for years, but have been too afraid  to ask people if I could photograph them. But somehow saying that I am doing a project and drawing 50 people makes it ok.I want to draw all ages and have a very mixed group. I want to draw people I know and strangers and all thats needed is that they are from Pisticci.
So I am organised. I have cards to give to the people I draw so that they can see the drawings on a blog I am using to display them,  http://studiobasilicata.wordpress.com/   I am making the portraits approximately A4 size. I have chosen the paper, I have some more people lined up to photograph. I am planning to make a small album with copies of the drawings already done so that I can show them to people I want to photograph which I can put in my handbag. And I have drawn the first 2 people.
Oh, and now that I have said all this I had better do it!!

It just doesn't feel right to have no photos on this post so will chose some I took last week.