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.