On Wednesday, it rained all day. I was undecided to go painting on Thursday morning but I prepared everything in the evening just in case. The forecast said it was going to rain in the afternoon on Thursday but not the morning.
So I woke up early and packed everything into the car. After 5 minutes of driving, the rain started coming down lightly. I parked near a place I had already picked on another occasion: I wanted to paint near the river with Castel Sant’Angelo in the background. When the rain stopped, I stepped outside the car only to notice that the high river had swallowed the embankment where I wanted to paint. Panic.
I got back in the car and took off in the direction of the Tiberina island. Time was precious but I thought I could find another spot in a hurry. In fact, near the island the river banks were still visible. The sun was rising and I had little time to lose.
I raced from the street level down the stairs to the embankment and started setting everything up. A man was fishing already nearby. I should have paid more attention when I saw that he left. After about 30 minutes I noticed new reflections in the river that weren’t there shortly before. In fact, looking at the water line, I saw that the water was rising quite quickly.
No worry I thought. I moved a little further from the water to a higher point. No luck. In 10 more minutes the water was coming up visibly quicker and it was becoming difficult to paint the ever changing foreground. I glanced back towards the stairs I had descended: the water had swallowed my path!
I put everything away and walked quickly to the nearest dry point of the embankment near the stairs. I took off my shoes and socks and waded to the first dry step of the stairs with all my gear. I put my footwear back on after drying my feet and walked up the stairs quite disappointed with my half finished painting.
However, walking back to the car I noticed the view from the top of the stairs was similar to the view from down on the embankment. I quickly set up again and finished the painting from a different view. So this is really two paintings in one.
[whohit]-Perils of Painting_EN-[/whohit]
