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.