Italy/ Doors, Dogs and Graffitti

I am home from my travels and have tons of pictures to sort through of Dogs, Doors and Graffitti. I traveled with a very experienced group of gals that have been abroad tons of times. I have no sense of direction in general so I clung pretty closely to my pals and I greatly appreciate all of their expertise. I am greatly inspired by the ancient mosaics I saw and by my fearless friends in general. Six of us took a class at Orsoni in Venice and 4 of us went on to Ravenna for the Mosaic festival there. I learned so much about travel and about Italy and mosaics.  I am so lucky to have had this opportunity to study mosaics abroad.  I am back at my desk today and ready to get caught up and get back to pet portraiture.

Below are just a few of my snapshots from Italy. I will be creating a set over at smugmug and also Flickr just as soon as I have time to edit and fine tune my photos. Thanks so much to Becky, Judy, Joyce, Leian and Tricia for showing me the ropes of world travel, and thanks to Dan, Kris and Lola for holding down the fort here at Art Paw.

No two doors are identical in Venice or Ravenna

There was lots of Graffitti in both Venice and Ravenna. Most was simple boring tagging, but some like this wall had a bit more color. One of my pals suggested I figure out what they say before posting, I do not have time to figure out the translation so my apologies if the words are offensive. I will have a large set over at flickr next week of graffitti and also interesting signage.

 There were tons of happy well cared for pups in Venice and I will have a much longer blog post about them next week.

 By the time we got to Ravenna I was getting tired of doors and Graffitti so I started shooting people and also bikes. The shot below shows a modern bike however I also have some cool shots of colorful vintage metal bikes with baskets. Most of the bikes in Ravenna were older and everyone used them to get around this small tourist town. When I go back with Dan I think we will rent some bikes and be able to cover more ground quickly that way.