My Venice Art Excursion

Discovered moments of joy, painted in Venice

Dear Friends,

I write to you with a full, open, and grateful heart.

It has been some time since I’ve written last. If you’ve been with me for some time, you will know that I only write when there is something of beauty or meaning to share.

For those of you who are receiving this as a first letter from me, thank you for being here. It is a delight to share in this way.

It brings my heart great joy to share that I’ve recently returned from a beautiful creative retreat in Venice. A retreat that I designed and curated for myself; filled with creative prompts, treasure hunts, messages from Venice, culinary delights, meaningful engagements with locals, and much more. A gift that came to me at a perfectly aligned time in my life.

Life had been feeling a bit like a liminal stretch of time, in part due to all that has been happening globally. This trip felt like both a beautiful gateway and arrival into an ‘island’ of joy, wonder, excitement, and awe, all in the watery depths of renewal.

For a few months leading up to this retreat, I had learned of a practice suggested by a spiritual teacher. This practice was simple yet profound. Choose a word. A word for this stage in one’s life that one can hold in remembrance and allow to become a guide. A word to reflect upon and become receptive to.

I had chosen the word “open.” It is what intuitively came to me.

I think it is in part due to carrying this word with me, that I experienced Venice with more joy than I ever have in my previous travels there. And Venice is always a dream.

The art that I made was different than what I am accustomed to making. The entirety of my experience there was a creative act. My days felt like works of art and reverence. How I engaged with the city, with locals, and the inspirations and insights that came to me, was truly memorable and renewing, and remains so. The city, in each of its secret corners, truly opened me up to seeing and experiencing it from a new lens. In return I experienced life itself, through what feels like a new lens.

I will continue to share the gems of my experience, both visually and in written form, here with you. I will also be sharing my creative Venice diary on my Instagram, should you enjoy joining me there.

For now, I will sign off with a suggestion for both myself and to you, to take this moment - this small but infinitely precious moment - to fill our hearts with the joy of a beautiful place we have traveled to. And to recall how being there moved us. For me, that moment is here, in my memories of Venice, and the very first “message” I received from the city on my first day there, as I entered Piazza San Marco, to embrace above all things, Joy.

I hope you enjoyed receiving this letter as much as I’ve delighted in writing to you.

I will look forward to writing again soon. Until then, wishing you much joy, beauty, wonder, and delight in your days ahead.

With my Warmest Regards,

xx ~ Sophia

Watercolor Beauty in Venice & in Our Selves

copyright © Sophia Khan

We can always turn to beauty. For me that means not only finding awe in great works of art, but also in the process of bringing forth my own version of beauty.

When looking at the sites and monuments I have visited throughout my travels, no matter what the space was built for, be it for worship and devotion, for burial, for gathering and celebrating, or mourning, there is most certainly always beauty. Because, as it has been said, “beauty never lies.” And that which is beautiful and engages our emotions, points to what is true within us.

Even when much time has passed, and a place no longer holds the same quality of meaning that it did when built, something of that spirit, that imagination and inspiration from which it was formed, remains within it.

That something, untouchable by the patina of time, is what I love to find in my travels and to paint, no matter where I may be. Because deep down inside, no matter the place, those inspirations and stirrings are always the same. Much like the shared experiences that move us all in life, no matter our background, values, or beliefs.

Venice, my most beloved muse, contains an endless palette of colors and moods in its beauty. For each traveler, the lure in this beauty offers a different meaning. That is true for many places. When we travel, we remember what a place evoked within us, what it inspired in us, how it moved us. In essence, it is a part of our selves we remember, when we remember our travels.

I initially began painting watercolors many years ago, to remember and find awe in the memories of my own travels. Over the years, the work has evolved from this seed, and I continue to hope that it can hold and evoke a certain celebration of place and self, for all of us who enjoy travel and architecture.

The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, is one of those places that is experienced very differently depending on where we view it from. Yet, what remains is that it has an element of something elusive. If you’re curious, I invite you to explore this in your next, or first, visit to Venice.

There are many reasons that I love to paint Venice, and they all have to do with the great blessing and gift of having traveled there. I would not be able to paint it with the expressiveness and emotive qualities that I seek to, had I not.

I don’t need to write much about how this year has been challenging for much of the world. We find that elsewhere. Here, I want to focus on the awe, inspiration, imagination, and beauty that carries us through all of life. And the joy.

In light of this and the upcoming holiday season, I would like to offer you, my reader here, a small gift. If you would like to collect a work of art, please enjoy complimentary shipping (on all purchases over $100).

Kindly enjoy the offer code: BEAUTY

I’ll also be sending a small but special artful treat that will be lovingly gifted with each purchase, regardless of your purchase amount. I will be offering this for a limited time, and it only happens once a year, so I hope you can enjoy it if it may be of interest.

And if you purchase one of my watercolors or prints, for yourself or a loved one for the holidays, I hope it can be a memento of the beauty and awe contained in these places built with imagination and the grandeur of the human spirit; something that is and will remain within each of us.

Piazza San Marco Venice Watercolour

How much does one need to say, to say Venice.

If you’d like to see more of my Venice inspired watercolours, you can follow along on my Instagram.

Light in Venice Watercolour

Capturing how light and water illuminate the stones and soul of Venice, in memory and on ‘canvas.’

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If you would delight in following my art & travels, I invite you to join my Instagram and sign up to receive “Letters from my Art Studio.”

For the Love of Venice

What feels like a "dark night" for Venice, but cannot be....

As many of you hold Venice close to heart, you may have been deeply saddened to hear of the devastating acqua alta that the city experienced last month.

Not long ago, I started reading John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, to know the city better. In Chapter 1, of the first volume, The Foundations, Ruskin describes Venice as a “ruin:”

“[Venice], is stell left for our beholding in the final period of her decline: a ghost upon the sands of the sea, so weak - so quiet ,- so bereft of all but her loveliness, that we might well doubt, as we watched her faint reflection in the mirage of the lagoon, which was the City, and which the Shadow.

I would endeavor to trace the lines of this image before it be for ever lost, and to record, as far as I may, the warning which seems to me to be uttered by every one of the fast-gaining waves, that beat, like passing bells, against the Stone of Venice.”

This is what Ruskin saw well over a century ago. It feels...ominous, but also deeply frightening that the need for safeguarding Venice, which was so urgent even then, does not feel heeded.

On the other hand, if we choose to look towards something to give us hope around the current state of Venice, despite what Ruskin saw and believed, Venice still stood, and still stands. To anyone who has visited the city, while there is much that endangers Venice, you will know that it cannot be called a “ruin.”

In an article in the New York Times, titled “Waters Close Over Venice,” Shaul Bassi, professor at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, describes how he himself experienced the acqua alta, and also the aftermath. But he also shares an opportunity for hope. He writes about how Venice could become an "international laboratory" for ideas and research around the issues that face not only Venice, but cities around the world threatened by the environmental crisis. He refers to the writings of cultural historian Salvatore Settis who called Venice "a thinking machine that allows us to ponder the very idea of the city."

What if the very spirit and ideas, the sensitivity and harmony between the natural and built environment, which helped create the foundations of the Venice most celebrated in our memories, are what those who make decisions about Venice's future return to when looking forward? This could perhaps allow Venice to not only be saved, but once again raise victorious.

Those of us who have the honor to know the city through our travels, or who long to one day know the city in this way, can play our own small part in helping Venice. For now, part of this looks like being aware, sharing what and how we can, and also helping the city repair itself after its flooding. In response to the recent acqua alta, the nonprofit, Save Venice, has partnered with the Embassy of Italy in Washington DC, to set up an Immediate Response Fund, if you feel so inclined to help at this time. (Just an fyi that I am not affiliated with the organization; I am a member and wanted to share the news for those who may want to help).

If you happen to purchase art from my online gallery, I am also currently donating a portion of my sales to this fund.

And lastly, I wanted to close with a beautiful silently powerful meditation on Venice which I learned of through Dream of Venice. It can be experienced here.

Until next time, I wish you joy, I wish you warmth, I wish you love, laughter, and the happiness found in being surrounded by loved ones, and I wish it all for you in beautiful abundance.

XX ~ Sophia

Venice as a Horizon Watercolor

Venice Horizon

A horizon is one of the most beautiful and inviting sights I know. For those of us who love Venice, I think our affinity for horizons is part of what lures us to the Venetian lagoon.

A horizon, wherever we may happen to find one, is a place we romantically look towards. I think this is because, through its visage, we are gifted a feeling of renewed hope around our lives and within ourselves. We find tranquility and excitement for where we are in life, and where we are going....the ripples of shimmering water ushering us towards an expanse which seems distant, yet is promising.

While the horizon may seem like a place where sea and sky meet, it is, in essence, an illusion. Except when the horizon appears to us as Venice; a place conceived and existing within this otherwise imaginary line. For me, this means Venice invites us to believe in everything that otherwise seems impossible.

In Venice, the sea weds the sky in infinite ways, throughout each second of encounter. I like imagining that the shape of the gondola - the means by which we navigate for ourselves this ever changing horizon of Venice - is symbolic of this meeting between the vertical and horizontal. On a personal note, perhaps it is for this reason that the experience of drifting on a gondola is one that I have intuitively reserved for a future time in my life...

Venice Horizon

Venice is a place that also reminds us of what is beautiful within each of us. How we experience the city and what is most memorable to us about the city, reveals something about ourselves we might otherwise not be aware of when we are home. This certainly has been my own personal experience.

Being an Artist who often reflects on why I make art, it is my hope that what I’ve written and painted here might offer an opening; a moment of repose within your day, a moment to dwell within a field of infinite possibilities, which the city of Venice graces upon us. And if you're blessed to have had your own experience of the city, perhaps it may also be an invitation to bask in a special memory, or feeling, that the city has gifted you. Whether this respite is around what is happening in Venice or within our individual lives is unique to each of us.

As I painted these watercolors and wrote these words, it certainly offered a very special opening for me. And I share from a place of knowing that experiencing joy and hope, and believing in miracles is one of the greatest and most precious gifts we have....

If you feel called to these words and watercolors, and may want to have your own personal "Venice Horizon" - an art experience inspired by what is most memorable to you about Venice - sign up for “Letters from my Studio,” here, and I will be sharing more.....

Venice Horizon

Venice Watercolors & Happiness

Happy Wednesday! Did I just say that? Why yes. A Wednesday can most certainly be happy :~)

Perhaps it's spring time, perhaps it's the plethora of creative ideas that have been streaming into my life and studio since the beginning of the year....Or, perhaps it's simply life. Being here, breathing, taking it all in day in and day out, and being grateful for the small joys, the big thrills, and even the tiny mishaps along the way that...yes, they do help us learn, evolve, remove any masks we once wore, and stand strong, with a graceful and dignified face up towards the path ahead in this journey of life. This journey that we walk, both together and by our bold and beautiful selves. Wouldn't you agree?

So, in this joyful air that I am basking in around me and wishing so much that you are as well :~) I share a small note and a quick reminder. These are the last few days that my latest gallery of Venice watercolor delights are being offered. Afterwards, my brushstrokes and offerings are moving a couple of hundred miles over to another beloved city.

The link to have a look is, here.

I do hope that you enjoy your "visit" and perhaps find something you would delight in welcoming into your home, or gifting another lover of Venice.

A Venetian Morning at Caffe Florian

A Watercolor inspired by my sketch at Caffe Florian

“In order to paint Venice beautifully, I must enjoy her beautifully.”
- Venice, 2016

Having visited Venice a few times since 1998, I finally treated myself to the pleasure of my own personal “Florian experience,” during my last painting trip to the city, in 2016. The timing was perfection, as two days after writing the above words in my travel diary, I had breakfast at Caffe Florian. I was indeed to enjoy Venice, beautifully.

That morning, I dressed myself as was befitting for the occasion, with a colorful and silky dress. As the city awoke, I boarded the vaporetto from my hotel near the Basilica dei Frari, accompanied by locals who seemed to be headed off for a day’s work. I too was heading to work, in a certain way. I was to dedicate my day to painting a watercolor for one of my trip’s patrons.

I arrived at Caffe Florian, just as it was opening its doors. I was warmly greeted and welcomed to sit anywhere I pleased. I walked around taking in the refined elegance of the interiors before selecting my table. I chose a seat that was in a corner near an open door looking into Piazza San Marco. From here, I could look outward at the piazza in one glance, inward at the cafe in another; my enjoyment drifting between the sights and sounds of both.

I ordered tea, a small plate of macarons, and a strawberry cake. Could one have dessert for breakfast? The question barely crossed my mind at the time. My waiter soon arrived with a silver tray served with my chosen delights. I feasted first, on the presentation itself. The colorful plate of macarons arranged as if an artist’s culinary color palette, complimented by the delicacy of the strawberry cake. The silverware, befitting for the delectable treats to be savored slowly.

As I dined at Caffe Florian, my time felt like a brief yet deeply enchanted and romantic moment in the vastness of time; the near 300 years that the cafe has been welcoming its guests from Piazza San Marco.

My morning at Caffe Florian

Can a place feel both opulent and welcoming? Can an experience be both majestic and personable? I feel that much of Venice and certainly Piazza San Marco has these qualities. Caffe Florian felt like the “icing on the cake” with which the city served this unique blend of experiences for me to enjoy my very own taste.

Before leaving the cafe, I gave myself the added treat of visiting the gift shop. With the help of the kind gentleman who worked there, in a room that felt like a treasure box of delights, I selected a few teas and a blue damask tote. Each gift was carefully packaged into its own gift bag; a gesture celebrating and recognizing the uniqueness of each treat, as well as the care with which each was selected.

I do believe that mornings are a precious and tender time of the day, and that they set the tone for what is to come throughout the rest of the day. Unbeknownst to me, my breakfast at Caffe Florian would lead to the most enjoyable painting session of my painting trip. The warmth and ambiance I experienced at the cafe mirroring themselves in the fuchsia and orange watercolor pigments I was to later paint with.

Every now and then I treat myself to this touch of Florian hospitality through their e-shop. The latest to arrive are their Venetian Mosaic tea, a long time favorite, as well as an elegant pouch in a fuchsia color reminiscent of the cafe’s upholstery. With this, I carry the beauty of my “Florian experience” with me every day.

My latest treats from the doors of Caffe Florian

I thank Caffe Florian for this most enchanted memory and until we meet again, I will remember my time through the flavors, the riches, and the moments that grace my easel, my memories, and my diaries…

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An Enchanted Venice Watercolor

An Enchanted Venice watercolor with detail views, copyright © Sophia Khan

I painted a love letter to Venice. With Mayan Dark Blue, with Carbazole Violet, with Burnt Umber, and iridescent gold. The colors spoke to me of a dream....a dream in which I found myself in Venice. There I was, living a fully abundant and colorful experience, beyond anything familiar, beyond anything expected. Yet, at the same time that the dream told of a world beyond, it all felt so familiar and real, almost as if I had already accepted the invitation of the visions that had come to me in this dream. And all I had to do was awaken to it.

And that is what this watercolor reminds me of. It takes its inspiration from something real, something beautifully designed and built, a place that one can touch, feel, and visit. Yet, there is an air of enchantment in adding new colors, new brushstrokes, and in rendering this historic palace in a light that celebrates endless possibility as something attainable, not only in dreams but in our very world. 

I am excited to share that this watercolor titled, "An Enchanted Venice" inspired by the Ca' d'Oro palace on the Grand Canal, is available as an original in my online shop:

Pescheria, Venice Fish Market

watercolor on Arches paper, copyright © Sophia Khan

The play of light as it hits the surfaces, textures, and moods of timeless architecture is something I have been exploring in my studio. There is no better city to indulge this than Venice. And so I started with the above watercolor of the Pescheria, or Fish Market. My memories take me to a time when I had visited the market. It was in the afternoon and so it was all emptied out, with me being the only person there. I felt like a had a part of Venice all to myself. There were some wonderful views from within this space, looking out onto the Grand Canal, and the surrounding palazzi. But what I am interested in capturing most is how the light and the city spills into the otherwise dark space of the fish market and creates a picturesque sense of chiaroscuro.