florence for culture week

so jake, josh x2, erin and i went to florence on friday (april 24th) to see everything we missed the first time... ambitious!

and everything was free! i love culture week!

so we got there...grabbed a coffee...

and went to our first stop, Palazzo Pitti
the only modern piece we ended up seeing....but it is awesome!

we went there on a whim because josh had a friend that recommended it.
so we went for the modern art...which was not modern art....so a huge disappointment...then we stumbled into the museums HUGE gardens!
we were there an hour and saw maybe a third of it! i can't wait to go back and have a picnic, play soccer and frisbee.... i can't wait :)
and go biking....because we ran out of time to do that.... stink

so here are some pictures from the garden....because it was amazing!

i like shadows.....and feet pictures.... :)
erin and me :)
the trees here were gorgeous!
how sweet is the slant of the steps!
jake hates this picture....so i thought i should put it up....

so then we went borgello to see donatello's david
and we were all artsy and stood around discussing the statues and the piece submitted for the competition for the gates of paradise on the bapistry

then the academia to see mich's david and unfinished slave statues
the unfinished statues were amazing, it was really as if these figures were breaking free from the rock that encased them

then we ate and ran....

then waited two hours talking to a lovely older couple from canada...then the Uffizi...which was cool to see some of the pieces, but really as a whole was not impressed with the uffizi's treatment of work, the lighting and encasing of the images made them hard to see....

but then we headed back to orvieto..... to see charlie :) my favorite pizza man!

goodnight spoon!

cinque terre

some rain at first .... a little colder than expected... specially at the campsite at night..... haha!

but all in all, cinque terre is beautiful!

so this fogging rain was saturday morning.... this is the town monterossa
hiked two hours from monterossa to vernazza
took the train to the riggamorre so jess could see the first two since they were close together before she left
some graffiti
a sweet view looking toward the monterola
monterola was gorgeous, the sun came out and we had a picnic lunch by the water, then walked up a path and found a bunch of cute old ladies doing watercolors! it made me miss water color so much! i can't wait to find some time to get back into it :)

jess and me :)
back to some solitary hiking and some great views!

day after

so it is the morning after.... no sleep.... but finished drawing in two days..... two straight days of drawing.

we did large drawings on cite in orvieto... i really loved my spot! i felt i really connected with the location and the people who stopped by all the time to look and offer me things! haha!

i can't wait to put up pictures of the work thus far! i will try to get to that soon.

ciao

buona pasqua!

pancake breakfast, church, lunch, and the fun/wine!
deciding how to interact with our ceramic friends
playing with the ceramic fishes
and a group shot
ps....we ate five giant chocolate easter eggs in like 6 hours or less....nice....

a drawing room....

So….i haven’t posted in sort of awhile, which I keep meaning too, but I have been so busy, enjoying italy, but mostly just drawing until I am covered head to toe in charcoal.

But it is easter Sunday today, and I am feeling lazy, so no work for now, just writing, and trying to finish up the book I am reading, which is, Crow Lake by mary lawson, which is really good. i have about fifty pages left…

On another random note, dried figs are amazing! I have become rather addicted…and in this last week, we have been working on two drawings, both dealing with intense light and shadow, and one of which is to be done at night, with an extreme light source and then we had to put ourself in it somehow…I did mine in our courtyard…every night this week, I bundled up, brought a cup of tea and drew for 2-3 hours…it was lovely! But afterwards whether is was midnight, or 2 am I had a little night cap…that is a bowl of cereal and dried fruit…

Anywho…not that the above is in anyway vital information…

Oh and Bible verse of this last month:
Ps. 112:4
“even in darkness light dawns for the upright…”

I realized I haved posted since I started drawing, which is really sad because this class has been amazing! I am learning so much about letting go in both my work and in life, it is funny, but my struggles at the easal tend to correlate with my life…

Matt (or professor and director) has been great and really helped me start to break through in my work. Learning to let go…
he has inspired me in many ways, the way he and his family live…we have got to know him and his family pretty well and I love them!

one of my favorite quotes he gave us came from:
“Night Studio: A memoir of Philip Guston” by Musa Mayer (his daughter)
“When you start working, everybody is in your studio—the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas all are there. But as you continue painting, they start to leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then if you are lucky, even you leave.”

There is so much more to write about this class, I will do it more just later, I want to photography my work, so I will try and talk a little more about the journey then, but for now….