A bird's eye view

One of my favorite nights was pretty much the only night that all of the class spent time together, we all got along really well but in the studio there was not much time to visit (except for the long break when we went for gelato, and I discovered the watermelon). But on Tuesday of the last week we all went over to Penny's apartment. 6 floors up and 2 story apt and then a rooftop terrace that looked over the entire city. We were supposed to go for pizza but no one wanted to leave.

The David, not your run of the mill renaissance sculpture

So there are several David's floating around the city here (well not exactly floating), and with my class last week I had the honor (with a hundred other people) of seeing the original.

The historian who gives us the tours for the Academy helped translate a book by a researcher who was studying the tools that Michelangelo used on his sculptures. Turns out he couldn't have made it any harder for himself. He grew up with a family of a Quarryman (I guess nobility sent their kids away to be raised by other families in the country) and he used to play with the quarry tools, (these are used to chip huge chunks of marble from the quarry), not to do the sculptors fine detail.

On top of that the piece of marble was a cast off piece that had been sitting behind the Duomo for 10 years or so that no one wanted because it had too much veining and it was too narrow in width, it was one that another artist had already started and so he had to design the david around what was there.

Some guy that Michelangelo, when he painted the sistine chapel he had done one other fresco in his life.

Tomorrow is our last class and we are all rushing to bring our drawings to final. I'm sad to have it end, it was a pretty amazing experience.

Seashells by the seashore

Sunday we had a family outing at the beach. We took a train to Castiglioncello (say that 3 times fast). A little resort town on the Italian riviera, it is the italian's holiday place which the tourists haven't discovered yet (except us of course). If Don won the big lottery I would buy property here, it's beautiful (could you get on that for me honey?).

There was a little stand at the top of the stairs leading from the beach where 

Faith had a hot dog on beautiful bread with ketchup that was more like 

pasta sauce. Adair and I had this thing they call a crepe but it was more like 

a doughnut sort of thing but it was lemony and melted in your mouth. I 

keep dreaming about it, it was so good.

We got back tired and sunburned so we stopped to eat "al fresco" on our 

walk from the station. There was a view directly through a little side street 

to Piazza Signoria by the Ufizzi and at the end was the David, not the 

original, but still...

We continued our walk home through that piazza and stopped to listen to

a man playing the flute. The acoustics on that particular corner are really 

amazing and every night there is someone playing there.

Once again crossing the bridge to our apartment there was another amazing 

view of the Ponte Vecchio. I don't know how each night can be so different 

but that's the magic of this place.

Learning how to walk again?

Given that the sidewalks range from 1 foot to 3 feet wide and the traffic ranges from 30 to 60 mph and no one stops at stop signs there is even an art to walking here. If you look back for traffic it's possible to fall off the sidewalk so it is important to listen for traffic as you are stepping off the sidewalk to pass someone, I am proud to say I have only almost gotten hit by a bicycle. 

Classes this week have been excellent, we have a live model and very close to a finished drawing. I was informed that the regular classes during the year spend 6 weeks on one pose so 6 days is really pushing us through. And I got a compliment from the model on my "finished" drawing which is high praise since she is one of the regular students.

Faith has come down with a cold so she and Adair (her babysitter) are taking it easy for a couple of days which isn't such a bad thing since it's turned hot again.

Last Saturday we went to a place called Villa San Michelle for lunch with my mom, as we walked in the waiter asked if we would like to stroll in the gardens before we sit down - it sits above Florence and looks down on the beautiful terra cotta rooftops, the building was designed by Michelangelo, it used to be a monastery but it's been turned into a very elegant hotel and restaurant where you can take culinary classes.

We may go to the beach this weekend perhaps stay over in a little pensione. I will try to post some photos now that we have a computer in residence (Adairs).