Italy 2017.06.03-.09.23 Term 2 Week 9

2017.06.03-.04
I am letting five sets of friends use my apartment over the summer. To help them, I prepared a list of recommendations for my summer guests. It was a leisurely day that also included a nice long circular walk that included the rose garden, Sant Minato al Monte and Piazza Michealangelo.

Sunday I finally was able to get to the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore.  It is the location that Michelangelo and many other Renaissance sculptors worked. From the website:

The largest concentration of Florentine monumental sculpture in the world includes medieval and Renaissance statues and reliefs in marble, bronze and silver by the leading artists of the era. Most of the masterpieces on display were specifically designed to adorn the interior or exterior of the religious monuments that still stand on the museum’s doorstep: the Baptistry of San Giovanni, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the “Duomo”) and Giotto’s Bell Tower. The Museo dell’Opera provides the ideal setting for the works of art made for these buildings, which today form a single group known as the “Great Museum of the Cathedral.

Here is a sampling of the wonders of the Renaissance. I especially like the Donatello sculptures, Michelangelo’s Pieta (unfinished) for his own tomb. The death mask is of Brunelleschi–the architect of the Duomo’s Dome.

2017.06.03-.09
Term 2 Week 9 had two components. First, I continued with the second week of my last figure drawing in graphite. The fall of the light, big form modeling, variations in the darks were completed. Next week I will finishforms in the light and rendering and .

I also spent two days at The Florence Studio beginning my process of learning about painting palette for portraits. To assist me, I began a copy of the The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Vermeer. I started to better understand not only color ways, but also how to establish the shadow shapes and, on day two, to blend.  Since this was a quick lesson, I did not finish my copy of the painting . When I am finished with term 2 at the Angel Academy of Art I will begin an 8-day portrait class that will use sight-size method—and build off the color work I did this week..