Bella Firenze

July 4, 2008

No fireworks today, thank god.

Tonight I had the most amazing visual experience.

I walked to a welcome dinner for the students on the other side of the Arno, quite a long way but at night there's lots of activity around the piazzas with street performers and musicians so it didn't feel that long.

The dinner was held at a beautiful palazzo outside on the terrace.

But on my way home at 10 or so I was walking over a bridge and looked up at the ponte vecchio and saw a sliver of the moon hanging over the bridge exactly in the center. With the colors of the bridge and lights reflected in deep turquoise water, it was absolutely breathtaking and with that added bonus of the moon it was quite spectacular. Of course I didn't have a camera with me and I'm not sure if a photo would have done it justice anyway.

Faith has charmed her way across Florence (big surprise there), they love children here. Bella bambina.

I hope to continue these posts, but I'll have to wait to add photos at home. I'm in an internet cafe.

Ciao for now.

Art Boot Camp

July 4, 2008

It is the end of the first week of classes and the only way I can describe it is "art boot camp" (another guy in the class calls them Art Nazi's). I spend the mornings walking with Faith (the only time she gets out), we usually go get crema, her favorite. And then I start the 3 mile walk to class, then upstairs to the ninety degree studio with gorgeous light but no open windows where we start sight sizing. Anyone familiar with this process knows that the Renaissance painters suffered for their art.

1. Spike your mark 10 or so feet from drawing so you always go back to the same spot.

2. Use plumline to measure area of cast, walk back to easle and mark a line. Walk to spot and chek measurement. Walk to easle and fix it because it will be wrong.

3. Do this process about a hundred more times until you have a geometric drawing of what the cast would look like if in fact it were geometric, which it isn't.

4. Then do the same process all over again with the shadows and then half tones (this takes days). Where's my bamboo stick.

The charcoal that we use is made by hand by a little french man.

This is one of the most challenging art classes I've taken and absolutely amazing. Just what I hoped it would be.

A mac conspiracy

July 3, 2008

It came!!!! After 5 days in the same clothes. We are all very excited. I can finally post on the blog and Faith can watch a movie in the afternoon so I can sleep at night.

Plug in computer, try to log on, error, damn.. turn it off, go to class, come home to a crying child. the computer has quit, no movie no sleep for me, ugh.

The next day I told Jordan my instructor about my computer woes. He asked if it's a mac. Apparently he and 3 friends all brought over macs from the states and within a month they all died. So, is it the Italian gods telling us to look at all the beauty around us instead of a computer screen? or a conspiracy against macs. We'll never know.

It's all about the suitcase

Monday, June 30.

We arrived yesterday, my mom broke her foot last week and has to wear a metal boot that weighs at least 10 lbs. I call it her armour (I figure if anyone bothers her she can use it as a weapon). The flight over was very interesting with wheel chairs, special airplane elevators and one real plus was going around the mile long line at customs in Amsterdam without any wait at all.

Now that we're here it's all about the infamous missing suitcase. Poor mom has been in the same clothes for 3 days. Jet lag persits and is especially hard for Faith. She naps while I'm at class and then wakes me up at 3:00 in the morning. My computer battery has died and of course the 220v converter is in "the suitcase" so there is really nothing to keep her occupied and awake in the afternoon while I'm gone.

I missed my first class today after a major meltdown about me leaving, by the time I got there I was already an hour late and I wasn't sure of the street numbers. Nothing is in order, but it makes life more interesting.