11/12/10

Ok, so now that I'm bumming around at the school, I'll post some of the recent work I've done. This is of my first charcoal drawing here (5 weeks worth of time). Honestly definitely not one of my favorite pieces and one that I don't care much about. All I can really see that I got out of it was a better understanding of getting the correct proportions and seeing shadow and light shapes better as well as slowing myself down... a lot.


Here's my second Bargue again. Still not 100% finished with it and this isn't an updated picture. It's from a couple of days ago. I was told to get softer pencils to darken it even more and to focus on the little shapes now instead of the large shadow shapes.

Today has been a bad day so far. I wake up and take a shower, then as I'm getting ready in my room, the power goes out. It went out a couple of nights ago and the landlord came and reset everything, explaining that when you use a certain amount of electricity your power gets shut off. We were using the oven, washing machine, and had a lot of the lights on in the apartment during that time so I can understand why it shut off then.
But today, Lucas was still sleeping so the only use of electricity was when I had the light on in the bathroom and then the light on in my room. I left for school but Lucas stayed behind to meet with the landlord when he came. I saw that the power box for the building had the red light on as well when I was leaving (instead of just the power meter for our apartment) so I think the entire building has a problem. I'm hoping the situation is resolved by the time classes are over because I don't want to have to throw out all the food in the fridge and have no light and no way to charge my computer and cold showers and no microwave.

11/10/10

A month left before I return to the US.
Here's some pictures from Rome like I said I would post.


I was a little sad that the Pantheon (first picture) was under construction. Half of it was covered in scaffolding. I would have liked to see it in person completely. But we were also able to go inside and nothing in there was under construction. The day was utterly exhausting, but we got to see what we wanted, even if we ended up taking a train 2 hours later than we originally timed.

We started on new model/charcoal drawings this week. We have a male model this time. I already had to start another preliminary pencil drawing because as the model 'settled' into the pose, his shoulders rotated a little to a different angle. I have a picture of my 'finished' charcoal drawing from the past 5 weeks, but the internet has been bad lately, so it took me all day to even get those few pictures from Rome up.

11/6/10

Sorry that I haven't updated in almost a week!
I've been pretty busy due to the fact that my dad and step mom came to visit me. It was a surprise visit (at least for everyone else other than me and my step mom). We kept it secret until my dad arrived to get his boarding pass for the airport. He thought he was going skiing or to Wisconsin for the weekend, haha. Anyway, it's great to see them both because even living back in the states I didn't get to see them much. And it's a lot of fun to be able to share this experience with people close to me and show them around the city.
We went to Rome yesterday, and I have to say to never try to do Rome in a day. We did pretty well and were able to see everything we wanted to see, but we were all zombies by the end of the day. I was a little upset because the Pantheon was under rennovation so half of it was covered by scaffolding. And we didn't get to spend as much time in the Forum or Palatine Hill as we should have. It's a lot larger of an area than I thought it would be.
I have pictures galore that I'll post later. My camera actually ran out of batteries and the last couple of pictures I took were pure luck because I turned it on, snapped quickly, and the camera died, so I just hoped they turned out ok.
Well, going out again with them today to do some shopping and walking and relaxing after yesterday. Sorry again about the shortness and lack of posting!

10/30/10

Probably finishing my second Bargue drawing next week. Just a couple more things to refine.
I unfortunatelt don't have an updated picture of my charcoal drawing. One more week with on that, though I feel like I need maybe only a day more with it.
Lucas, Jo (British), Amy (New Zealand), and I went to Lucca today. It's a small town a little over an hour train ride from Florence. We went to see the town and because this is the last weekend of the Lucca Game and Comic Convention. We really didn't expect it, but THE ENTIRE TOWN was the convention. Literally the entire town was taken over by the convention. Europeans definitely know how to throw a convention. They also dress up for them better. The costumes we saw were all really well made and very wide ranged. Although the Italians seem to love Resident Evil and Star Wars above all. They also had the gallery of Illustrators. James Gurney (creator of Dinotopia, if any of you know what that is) was there. He's Lucas's role model in terms of art and a great inspiration, so it was nice to meet him and he was very awesome about talking with us about art. Here's a photo dump of just a couple of the photos from today:

10/27/10

Halloween is almost upon us. It really doesn't seem like it either. I miss seeing skeletons and pumpkins everywhere. I miss the leaves everywhere. The only thing the same is the cold. It doesn't even have the Fall smell here, just the cold. I have no idea what I'm doing on Halloween. I think maybe going to a party that Rachel invited us to, but I won't know anyone there except Lucas and her and I'm not sure if I'm up to that. I'm sure the other students will have a party together and I think I'd much rather go to that if that's the case. If not, I'll see if Lucas wants to host something on Saturday night or something.

They turned the heat on in the studios but it's still necessary to wear a hoodie or jacket while working. We also have the heat set to 68 F (20 C) in the apartment and we've been dealing with that ok, just piling the layers on. We don't want to have the gas bill be more than it needs to and Lucas and I are both used to a lot colder weather.

I'm feeling down again. I think it could just be a mixture of the weather, my migraines and back and neck pain coming back, and just bordom. I have no idea why I am so bored with my work right now, but I have to kick myself to work on my Bargue and even my charcoal model drawing. I left early on Monday and didn't go to class yesterday mainly because of a constant migraine that seems to want to put me in a coma. I've tried everything to get rid of it but it seems to only be gone when I'm sleeping. It also dies down if I'm laying down listening to music or something like that for a couple of hours. Poop.

I'm getting extremely homesick again as well. Only 46(?) more days until I get to see everyone again. It's probably a bad thing that I keep daydreaming the day I get home from the airport.

I'm planning on going to Rome next weekend (Nov 5th?). I'm hoping to be able to hit all the places I want to see within a day. From what I've been reading, it is possible. Especially since most of the places I want to see are near each other.

Well, off to model drawing. I'm hoping to get something accomplished although I don't want to work anymore on the drawing. It's pretty much finished, though I know there's some tweaking that needs to be done. But not looking forward to the 3 hours of standing with a owee back and neck and pounding migraine.

10/23/10

Last night was fun. We went to Moyo, another aperitivo (buffet-ish bar) with a group of other students for one of the student's (Lynn, from South Africa. Her 28th) birthday. Had a good deal of fun there just hanging out and talking, then headed to a little bar afterwards and chatted a bit there as well. Here are some pictures.
Lucas's cousin is here this weekend and today we went shopping. We went to a bunch of little markets and I finally got some things that I've been meaning to buy. Stopped for lunch at a little cafe, then walked around some more. I saw the most adorable English Bulldog puppy that was following his owner around (leashless). Here I am going to reiterate how awesome and well trained the dogs are here. We've also been noticing a lot of wolf hybrids here. At first I thought a couple were just husky-type dogs, but they are definitely not as thick and you can tell if you look at a picture of a wolf how similar many of the dogs here are. I finally saw a min pin as well. Made me miss Chevy all over again. We hit almost all the 'tourist' spots in Florence but they're all places I've seen before. We also stopped at a vintage store and I bought a cool... er warm wool sweater. It's starting to get quite chilly here, especially after the sun goes down and in the morning. Chilly enough to see your breath!
We also stopped at the all-English bookstore. I found this amazing book, only 15euro! I'm sure in the states it would cost $50 minimum.

10/21/10

Nothing much going on. Working on art, coming home exhausted and passing out, repeat.

Good news: my camera decided to work again! I now have the camera cord as well so expect pictures soon.
Bad news: my hard drive was wiped. Long story, but everything is gone again which means it's going to be more difficult for me to edit photos and write papers and I can't use my wacom tablet anymore because I don't have photoshop :(
More bad news is that one of the other students just went home yesterday. Her dad was in a motorcycle accident and died. They wanted her to stay, but I wouldn't imagine staying away if a family member died, especially a father.

I was happy because I got complimented (?) today by the teacher. She asked me if I'd had formal training before when she stopped to look at and critique my charcoal model drawing.
She was also saying how she likes how I'm approaching my Bargue drawing this time. I started doing what one of the assistants suggested and made the cast shadow lines really sharp and the regular shadow lines fuzzier. Plus I have everything pretty spot on already unlike having to move every little thing again and again on my last drawing.

Lucas's cousin is coming in today and spending the weekend. I think we're going to go to the leather market on Saturday and I know we're going out to dinner with her tonight. It should be interesting.

I got all the care packages sent out (at least the ones I was told of). Everyone is amazing for sending stuff and I can say I'm happy that I have American junk food now. Haha.