Welcome to Italy! If you are near Rome, you might want to dedicate a half-day or more to Bracciano, where we have a 15th century castle and very scenic lake to enjoy and sketch or paint. I have enjoyed your site for a long time.

Lucca and vicinity will/has certainly filled your time - and only a small corner of Tuscany. IF you get southeast toward Siena, among the 1000 other great places, I recommend Castello de Volpaia, just north of Radda in Chianti for great subject matter, great people and great vino and mangia!!! (both Lucca and there next month for us--paintings to follow!!) All the best.

I loved the article and found most of it very appropriate...being a 60 year old owl that is! For myself I find most of my 'preferred' time to paint is in the early afternoon when the sun is at its most intense if I'm painting from a photo and later on...perhaps 6 or 7 if I'm doing a plein air attempt or a sketch. The late hours however are where my most critical observations are made of COMPLETED or partially completed work and I find myself more capable of honestly evaluating the paintings....and roughing out what I see as corrections but leave the actual correcting for the best light of day.
Cheers from Canada North

Well, I'm a lark and always have been, I guess. Early morning is my creative time and most serene. I live on a mountain in the woods and I love the light as it plays through the trees. Gubbio is also a wonderful place. I was fortunate enough to live in Rome for 2 years and travel "up and down and around" Italy. Such an inspirational place. Painted with Alberto Conti of Rome while there. I enjoy your letters--thank you. My work can be found on my co-operative's website.

I have so much enjoyed your letters from Luccca. What a fabulous place. I have always been a lark and do my best work or just thinking in the hours between 6 and noon.

Well I have always been a lark and usually poop out about 3 in the afternoon and need a nap to get me through. But of lately I seem to be moving over into the owl territory or some where in between! Can't seem to get going in the morning and when it is bedtime I am wide awake.

Italy! wow I would love to travel there some day. I am from Italian heritage. Both grandparents were from Silicy and came to America. I understand there are distance cousins there...hmmm might be a good excuse to go visit!

Robert thank you for the great tour and I really enjoy the newsletters. I am new to this site but really like it.

I am thinking about a trip to Tuscany and am wondering if any readers have had problems transporting art materials by air. I believe that tubes of paint may burst or leak at high altitudes while in cargo, and taking tubes of paint as carry-on is likely a no-no these days. Any words of wisdom?

Early to bed, and early to rise;
And your girl goes out with other guys.
- Anon

I am a "lark" but often spend mornings on errands, reading or dithering in my garden, shop or studio. My best, most focused time for painting is from 2 to 6 or 7 p.m. Bed by 9, sleep by 10 p.m.

Robert, after thirty-five years in the graphics and adv. biz (been painting full time since then, sort of, for twenty) ...in the ad biz...I learned the real work happened after everyone went home and the phones went away...'til the wee hours. So now it's ingrained. My wife goes to the studio around 7 or 8 am and we meet around 3 or 4 pm as I go to work. We, do, do lunch together. So it's not all genetic, some of us learned it the hard way.

Don't know what difference it would make to a creative soul, working in the AM or PM. I'd think one might be just as productive as the other. I think a preference for mornings or nights as the time to be active are simply part of the individual's personality. Basing this on my two daughters. One hates, and has always hated, to get up in the morning and to go to bed at night. The other loves the morning, and always has, and crashes soon after dark. They were a riot to live with when they were both home. The owl gets up slow and grumpy and the lark quick and perky. Since they are both grown and alive you will know we were successful at keeping the owl from killing the lark! Neither of them is particularly interested in art, but each is creative in her own way. Our son was the smart lark who knew when and where to sing! He is a better artist than his sisters, but it's not his passion. He's a Marine, so his preference for mornings comes in handy now!

As for me, I generally like mornings best and get busy, but not on my art. Mom trained me well to get all the chores out of the way first. So generally that's what I do, unless! I have started a series of paintings that I'm really into! Then, I'll do very little else and just work on the paintings until they are finished! No matter the time of day. One problem with nights, not dependent on my energy level or preferences, LIGHT! It's difficult to get enough good light to work after the sun is down.

What a kind and inquisitive face the Bird Man has in the photo. I rescued a pinfeathered American Kestrel years ago not knowing of its lineage. I raised her in my home for about a year until I found that it was illegal at which point I studied, took the Fish and Game tests, found a sponsor, built a hawk-house and started to train her to hunt (although at times I had 40 live mice for her). We were very close until a suitor flew at the window to indicate that she would be his alone. I painted her from a photo wishing now that I had spent time drawing her often. Just recently I rescued a house finch who at about four days from snuggled in its egg fell from the underside of the tile roof. It's about three weeks old now, fully feathered and weaned onto seeds, fruit and vegetables. Monday it will be on its way out of my home and into the garden where I found it. How fortunate I have been.

Regarding Lansdowne's bird art. I have a copy of his Birds of the Forest. What I most love are the intro pages for each species which are his sketches. It shows the work behind the art. Fieldwork is underappreciated and underused but is the back bone of great wildlife art. To me the sketches say more about the species than the carefully crafted, beautiful paintings. I wish that America would also value the more loose watercolor representations of wildlife more common in Europe that catches the essence but not every fin and feather. Have you seen Barry van Dusen's work? It beautifully captures the spirit of the bird as one sees it. We don't see every feather except when in hand or at a museum.

So many comments from Owls, so few from Larks. Being a lifelong Lark myself, I've long enjoyed the early morning hours. Talk about quiet and solitude! It's great to have that time to myself while the rest of the world sleeps.

I am more in tune with Warren Criswell. I tend to wake early but not to work. I brew a pot of java, light a fine tobacco product, and sit on my back porch listening to the morning doves coo and other feathered friend's call. I admire the "larks" (or "fool's" as I fondly refer to them) jog or walk around the neighborhood. I spend my mornings in my head, planning, meditating, focusing, researching, reading, writing, sketching on what I will be doing when I get motivated- which is right about noon. Then, without distractions, and the when my room's lit up, I can work for hours. Around 7 or 8 I'm done. Unwind (some wine is good- more wine is better) and go to bed by 10. Works good for me. (I realize that coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and lack of exercise is not a healthy lifestyle of which I must reply - "I don't care". I feel great. The doctor says I'm healthy - begrudgingly. I have all my teeth and hair and besides I'm pretty sure it's illegal to jog in St. George, Utah before the age of 65.) I don't believe I'm a lark or an owl - possibly, a nutcracker.

Bill, I travel often to France. Fortunately for me, my husband speaks French. I take brushes, Winsor & Newton, Griffin Alkyd, fast drying Oil Colour and Gessoed, cut unstretched canvas (I glue it to boards when I return home). I take two or three pieces of foam core (cut larger than the canvas) to tack the canvas onto - the extra boards are used for drying. I don't take the boards home and the canvas packs flat. I don't take solvents as I don't use them and couldn't take them on the plane. A bar of Sunlight soap cleans my brushes. I also have a fold-up easel and my pallet is disposable. I put it in a covered plastic flat box used for acrylics. I buy paper towels there and a cheap umbrella, if I need it. The paint never freezes or bursts.

Bill, regarding your question about transporting art supplies. When I flew from New Zealand to USA in 2006, I just brought brushes from home and purchased my oils in the USA. In the rush to pack for the trip back to New Zealand, I tossed my box of paints and brushes into one of the checked suitcases. No problems with bursting or with the airlines, thank God!!! My only recommendation would be to check if it is okay with the airline, just so you don't go against the regulations. Cheers.