Picture of the Week: 'Moobs'

'Moobs' is the name of the gnome inhabitant of the Ljubljana apartment where I stayed a couple weeks ago. 

Bled and Cream Cake

Probably among the most famous Slovenian destinations, Bled is a small town in the mountains northwest of Ljubljana. Tourists will instantly fall in love with the charming lake which Bled surrounds, and most of all, the island that is home to a small church, which makes the lake seem almost magical. Among Slovenians, though, Bled is known for a different reason - cake.

The original Bled cream cake.

The Blejska Kremna Rezina, as this is called in its native tongue, is sold throughout Slovenia and can be found in just about any coffee shop in the small country. But the 'real' cake must be eaten not only in the town of Bled, but in the restaurant where we ate it (which I suppose was also the birthplace for this sweet pastry). 

 

The cake, which seems thick and heavy, was delightfully light and fluffy. This is very important considering the large portions that you can expect to be served. And contrary to what I expected, the cake was not overly sweetened, which made it quite enjoyable. 

A sign for the cake place.

Apart from the cake, Bled is a great little town. With about 5,000 inhabitants, it is a very small community, yet receives lots of tourist traffic in the summer. When I went, it was February and snowing, so I would not say that I saw it in its prime state, but it was great all the same. 

The Bled church on the island.

The church located on the small island, though not particularly significant as a church, is the location for many weddings and other events that benefit from a picturesque setting. This is definitely a place I would love to come back and visit in the summer.

Boats tied up for the winter.

Learning to Draw

I’ve never been good at art – at least not in the traditional sense of the word. Back in the United States, the only art classes I took were more “modern” mediums, such as photography and metalwork. Even then, I would not say that I was necessarily good at it. All I knew how to do was come up with a creative idea, like taking a black-and-white picture of a plate sitting on a doormat or making a miniature metal playground.

My workspace: I actually don't need the blade nor the triangle, but they make me feel professional. 

But now, in Italy, the home of over half of the world’s art and arguably the best place to learn it, I had to do an assignment. Usually this would not be a problem, but this was my first time ever reproducing a piece of art. It was not like in the United States where you can go off and explore your own realms of imagination and draw or paint that. Instead, here the only flexibility we had was choosing which piece we were going to reproduce.

Most of my classmates chose the masterpieces that I expected – Sandro Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus, a profile of Michelangelo’s David, and other works from artists like Leonardo Da Vinci, Rafael, Titian, and the like. I, on the other hand, did not want to do something by an artist who shares a name with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Instead, I chose the odd, yet beautiful The Adoration of the Shepherds by the Spanish Renaissance artist El Greco.

The teacher did have to approve it before I could begin, though. That way, people would not choose a piece that was too easy. Apparently I chose one of the hardest pieces in the book - so hard that she made me do it only in black and white.

A few weeks and a couple of work hours later, this is what my final product looks like compared with the original black and white copy:

El Greco on the left. Alex Cuadrado on the right. 

The teacher was very impressed with me reproducing it so well, and said that “I really captured the luminosity of the baby Jesus.” Let’s see what grade she gives me on this nativity scene, though.

By the way, my favorite part was drawing the ox’s horn and the shepherd's arm (on the right).