Each spring the sky grows lighter, the days grow longer.  I put my box of watercolors, my jar, my brushes, into my bag and off I go, hoping that the Roman sun will evaporate the puddle of watercolor just when the pigments have flowed to the right place to capture the way the sunlight illuminates the dome, the way the pine trees blend into the sky, the way the shadows almost shimmer – as though the Mediterranean sea has filled the world with tiny little drops of light.  I sit and paint, while the sunlight gently moves across the stone, squeezing the shadows smaller and smaller till they suddenly switch to the other side, and it is time to leave.  Again and again, and yet like actors on stage, no two puddles, no two watercolors are the same.

At home the walls are gradually covered with a new series of giant charcoal river god statues from the Piazza Navona.  The drawings are a life-sized near-human presence, silently gesturing with the models who come to pose.