Monday, November 08, 2010

Aranciata



I have a weakness for good Italian sodas as occasional treats and found some lovely squat little bottles of Aranciata - an orange mineral water in a small neighbourhood grocery.  The bottle shape appealed to me as well as the orange colour of the contents.  I seem to look at everything in grocery stores in terms of subject matter, so home came six little bottles with me.  Well I have to have some to drink as well as paint...

I drew out the piece on a full sized sheet of 200lb watercolour paper and have started adding some washes of colour to it.  So far, so good.    Early Wednesday morning I go out of town until Monday so I don't anticipate moving a lot further on this until next week.

And now a little background on this mineral water compliments of Wikipedia.
San Pellegrino mineral water has been produced for over 600 years. In 1395, the town borders of San Pellegrino were drawn, marking the start of its water industry. Leonardo da Vinci visited the town in 1509 to sample and examine the town's "miraculous" water, later writing a treatise on the subject. Analysis shows that the water is strikingly similar to the samples taken in 1782, the first year such analysis took place.

The earliest existing records show that 35,343 bottles were produced (5,562 of which were exported) in 1899. Nine years later, San Pellegrino was exported to the main European cities, as well as Cairo, Tangiers, Shanghai, Calcutta, Sydney, Brazil, Peru and the USA.

In 1932, the Aranciata orangeade variant was introduced. Containing San Pellegrino as its primary ingredient, the soda added concentrated orange juice.

8 comments:

A Brush with Color said...

Lovely, Jeanette! It sounds good, and it looks beautiful. I look forward to seeing it develop.

Pat said...

Looking good so far. Looking forward to seeing the finished work :) xx

lara said...

Lovely, I like it very much

Jeanette Jobson said...

Thanks Sue. I love the shape of the bottle and the colour. I hope I can do it justice.

It may take a little time to complete depending on what other interruptions happen Pat, but I'll get there.

Thank you Lara.

laura said...

Your drawings always make me want to draw more (and better), and they reiterate for me the purposes of drawing: seeing and expression.
I really love this one.
So hard for me to know when to stop: this is just right!

Jeanette Jobson said...

Laura, thank you. There is something so perfect to me in the act of drawing. I'm glad you're enjoying it also. There can be no finer discipline than that of drawing well.

The stopping point is the challenge for all of us at times. Its so easy to go over the line to mud in watercolour so I'm going slow with this one.

Hedera said...

Once again I really like the fact that the drawing is unfinished Jeanette. It adds a certain mystery, and the eye lingers over the delicate line and colour...

JANE MINTER said...

you've got such an incredible eye for detail jeanette .... enjoy ! "cin cin"