Long time no blog

My hotel in Florence lost wifi in the second week I was there and the hotel in Rome had virtally no wifi and here I am in Sri Lanka trying to catch up.

The most frustrating aspect is the fact that it takes hours to upload the images via Google which has also contributed to these delay.

But here I am... blogging in Sri Lankan sun set. I would provide a photo, only my phone refuses to let me transfer my photos directly to my computer and the wifi is struggling to upload to Google, so this maybe a touch text heavy at this stage.

My last post was after my art class finished. This was my second last day in Florence and on the last day I took a tour around Tuscany.

The smell of linseed oil.

Me again,

I've been spending this week learning to draw and paint again. I've been too lazy to do things properly for so long, I forgot the basics techniques.

The guys here at Accademia d'Arte  are great! I'm having such a good experience. I wish I could just give up my life and live here and paint everyday. I walk the cobbled streets to the school each morning. These streets were first founded by Julius Caesar. I find a little cafe for lunch where the frescoes on the walls and ceiling have been preserved for hundreds of years. I get here at 10am and stay till I get kicked out at 7pm.

First the week started with a drawing class. Here was my first attempt.

Enrico showed me how to use my pencil to identify proportions which I'm still practising. Then we got a second go at the still life.

Bit better, but still a bit wonky.

Then a NAKED man sat in front of us and we proceeded to draw him.

Again, my proportions are still all over the place and so is my shading.

Enrico got us to use charcoal with this pose.

As you can see, I still have the head out of proportion with the rest of him. Enrico told me to study the anatomy, so I did a muscle study.

On Tuesday, We had a painting lesson. We were all given the same painting to copy. We traced it and used the renaissance technique to transfer our tracing to the canvas by pricking the cartoon sketch and then adding pigment. We then had to use turpentine to connect our dots and fill in the areas with colour. Then do a second layer with three shade for each colour area.

This was my first layer and below is the finished one.

Decided to use two of my photos to paint using this technique.

On Wednesday I used this photo I took at Casa Bunorotti - family home of Michelangelo.

Scaled it up with a grid and transferred it onto my canvas.

Then connected the pigment trace and filled in areas of colour.

And here is the first layer of basic shading.

Last night I had a second drawing class where we had a female model. This first sketch - we only had 15 minutes and the model was cold so she had her clothes on.

The teacher asked me if I had a background in cartoon/illustration and I told her about the shadow puppets.

This is my first drawing I'm happy with. We had an hour to do this one.

I'm finding that I need plenty of practice with feet and hands.

Here's my last pose, I'm most happy with.

Today is Thursday and I chose a photo I took at Clos Luce  (the final home of Leonardo Da Vinci)  to paint.

This is where it is at at the moment. I'll finish it off in the morning and finish my cupid tomorrow night.

Tomorrow's my last day which makes me sad!

Final paintings. They still need some work, though.

Here is the school.

Io amo l'Italia!

Howdy Blog Fans!

Having a ball in Italy. I think it's my favourite place so far - although it's hard to compare with Egypt. It helps that I have started my art course today and a spring in my step emerges like a big springy emerging thingy.

So what have you missed?

Ok, it's been a few days and, if we are not facebook friends, you may have missed some meals where I have photographed my empty plates. Don't worry, though! I'll keep you abreast of all meals. Stay tuned.

So, let's start with David's bum.

It was very exciting to see it in real life, however you only have to be in Florence for 1 minute to see at least 50 copies of this sculpture. It is everywhere. While at Museo della Academia my cat Daphne called (well, technically it was Glenys, her sitter, who pressed the buttons on Skype). I felt bad and was whispering into my phone and turned down the sound so as not to disturb the other art lovers. I showed Daph and Glenys the David and showed them some other sculptures in the background. Daph was less interested in the art and more interested in when Glenys was going to feed her.

I may as well not bothered keeping my voice down because as I have discovered in my travels, Chinese tourists are one of the loudest things known to human ears. I have also discovered that Italian tourists too, can be rather "forte". It's a battle between the Chinese and the Italians for volume supremacy. I was talking to a guy in a leather bag shop about this. He travels a lot and works in Florence so he can practice using his many languages. He said, Italians win over the Chinese for noise. Most of these noisy Italians come from the south, he said. That was where he is from.

So... imagine. You're in a beautiful gallery with magnificent works of art, and you're just relaxed and want to enjoy... the... what.. the hell is that NOISE?!!!

Oh, just Chinese and Italian tourists. Simply talking to each other... from across the room... or down the street. Chinese with less hand gestures, of course.

When I saw the Japanese group in the Uffizi, you could barely hear the guide talking to them, they were so quiet.

Takes all sorts, though, aye?!

Like buskers, for instance: There are a lot of street vendors that are artists and there are dodgy performance artists too. One guy just paints his face white and asks for money. This person was being escorted by two army offices from the Duomo. By the time I got a shot, they were arguing at the gelato bar.

Now this shot shows the blue entrance to the first exhibition I saw at Academia. In that exhibition I was not allowed to take photos. It was of medieval fabrics, tapestries and clothing. Lovely. But there were 7 gallery staff members in that space having, what seemed to me, to be a huge argument. And of course... they were very loud. I took my phone out to photograph them having an argument and one of them turned and said "no photos". So you'll have to take my word for it.

If you have visited my house you will know that my piano has a few brown notes. Found this little gem, not only with brown notes, but the keys are carved with the trinity. How gorgeous.

I learned a lot about sculpture in this gallery. How they use plaster models and scale them up for marble using points over the model. See the marks all over these two girls.

I loved the modest hand gestures of all these female busts.

And this is just a stupid selfy that undermines the majesty of the great art behind me.

You can see the state of my hair now. It's no longer, "I woke up like this, great hair", it's "I woke up and now I have to wet my head and plaster my hair down as much as possible, hair." Regrowth spoils it, too.

Then I went to the most exciting spot so far: Casa Buonorotti. The home of Michelangelo's family. He spent most of his working life in Rome, but he maintained a home in Florence as well. His nephew kept his home and attempted to collect all the works of the master and to start a collection of antiquities as well. Like Clos Luce, it is amazing to walk in the rooms the master once walked. There are not many likenesses of Michelangelo, he was busy making portraits of his employers. There is ONE painting made during his life time.

This is it.

He lived into his 80s. He lived and breathed art. He did not live well with luxuries and fine food, despite being able to afford to. He worked hard and was skin and bone most of his life.

Architect, Designer, Artist. He lays in Santa Croce. I went there and attended Mass. Yep. I went to mass, and I didn't have to. I figured, if I was going to attend church and pretend to pray somewhere, this was the place to pretend to pray. In the presence of Galileo and Michelangelo.

Galileo's Tomb

Michelangelo's' Tomb

You can still see evidence of the 1966 flood on the altar of the crypt.

The Santa Croce complex is lovely - it was the Medici family chapel, you know. Coz who wants to pray with the common folk, right?

Anyway, I sat and drew the cloisters... but it was merde, so here's the photo instead.

And this is the remnants of one of the roles worn by St Francis of Assisi. Imagine THAT!!!

Anyway... back to Casa Buonorotti...

Michelangelo Buonorotti burned all his preliminary sketches because he did not want anyone to see his planning or to see his limitations.

Here is one of the very few sketches left in existence collected by his nephew. Look at the boldness of line. This is in ink with no pencil lines, yet his lines are so perfect. What a skill.

I got a bit excited being in his house.

One of the things I like about Florence over Paris, is that there is always somewhere to sit.

Florence says, "Hey, sit down. Have a rest. Have some coffee, where are you from.."

Paris is like "What the fuck are you doing? Why are you standing in the street? Spend some money!"


On Sunday, I decided to take it easy and go for a walk up the hill to Palazzio Michelangelo - a park where you can see down across all of Florence. I thought, I might get a chance to sit quietly away from all the noisy people and paint...

Then these guys show up...

A Vespa convention. Phew... so noisy.

But a great view!!

Some weird stuff going on under this bridge. Thoughts? Anyone?

Today I started my art course here at Academia Del Arte.

Bought all my art supplies from this really cool art store.

And we started in drawing class this afternoon. I actually learned some new skills today in how to transfer correct proportion onto the page.

Here are my first sketches. I left my charcoal drawing at school.

It's been a long time since I was in the same room as a naked man, that's for sure.

Might finish off with some meals you missed out on.

They were delicious. Pity you missed them.

I have a new respect for balsamic vinegar now. I've always hated it. But the stuff they give you here.. is amazing. It's a completely different species to that evil black stuff they inflict on salad in Australia.

I also had a disappointing encounter with pesto, which I did not photograph as it did not deserve it. I could make better pesto than that.. and have done, from scratch, on many occasions. It made me start to question everything I know about "authentic" cuisine.

Not one restaurant has given me a spoon on which to swirl my spaghetti. The tomato sauce I have had with my pasta in various restaurants is just like what I make at home. So I'm thinking, either I'm just really good at making spaghetti sauce or, there really is nothing to this "authentic" bollocks after all.

Till next time..
Vic Farrell, Florence.