Blog
7/20/2015 12:12:18 PM
After the workshop we traveled with Debra and Ivano to the mountain village of Fiesole. It is a small town with a big view. To the south the entire city of Florence spreads out before you and to the North the mountains are dotted with villas, olive groves, and the occasional Roman aqueduct. Fiesole is small and walkable, and hosts an archeological site of a Roman and Etruscan ruins. 
The center of town is lined with charming restaurants and shops. A road rises from the center of town to the monastery at the top of the hill.
Our hotel is beautiful and each room is graced with a panoramic view of the mountainous country side. The rooms face north so sunrises and sunsets can be viewed from the balconies. We enjoyed sitting out there, sipping wine, and playing, “Which villa would you own?”
I would own this one.
My job was to plan the workshop for next year by finding painting locations that meet the criteria of being both accessible and stunning - not a hard task in this beautiful town.
We are working out the details for next the 2016 landscape painting Italian adventure. If you are interested in joining us please contact me at [email protected].
Italian Aperitif- Cheers!
7/9/2015 10:59:21 AM
I was not prepared for the impact of seeing the statue of David - he literally took my breath away. Stand at the hallway entrance that houses the statue and you hear gasps from the crowds who have waited hours to see one of the greatest works of art on earth.
In the last blog I talked about artists visiting museums to study how other artists made their creations. David is unlike any work I have ever seen. His presence is huge, the proportions of his hands and feet enlarged and yet he is perfect. 
Why is this work so powerful? My opinion is that Michelangelo’s David strikes a powerful chord because he has captured the perfect “about to” moment. Other depictions of David show him triumphantly holding the head of Goliath. The feat is accomplished; the climax of the story is over. In Michelangelo’s David, we see a young man fully focused on what is about to happen. He holds the sling in one hand and the rock in the other, his brow furrowed as he judges the distance to his foe. The contrapposto shows a body both tense and relaxed as he prepares in the next moment to shift his weight and let loose the rock in the sling. His muscles are exaggerated and rhythmic adding to the tension that allows the viewer to imagine what will happen next.
This powerful image of David stayed with me after viewing him for the first time in 2014. Seeing him again did not lessen the impact. In my own work I find myself searching for the gesture that will tell what will happen next. In my workshops I teach the concept of capturing the “about to” moment and how it can add life into rendering. David is a powerful image for artists to learn from. We cannot comprehend how Michelangelo carved perfection out of a single block of marble but we can study how he continues to inspire awe with the “about to “moment.
7/3/2015 1:47:20 PM
One of the major perks of the workshop in Florence is the museum visits. My wonder-hosts Debra and Ivano set up tours of the major art museums in Florence, the Uffizzi, The Varsari Corridor, the Pitti Palace, and the Academia. Each museum tour is lead by an incredible guide named Alexandra. She has the ability to knit history, art, and politics, into an intriguing storyline.
Michelangelo
With all the images on the internet and in print why is it so important for artists to visit museums? When you view an image in print so much is information is lost. The camera acts as a filter between the artist and the viewer. Seeing the work in real life the viewer gets to have a direct conversation with the artist. You can study the paint application, the brush strokes, and the true color. Also seeing a work in its true size you can appreciate subtleties that are lost when an image is shrunk down. I never appreciated the long toes in Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” but in the Uffizi they are at eye level and outlined in black.
My favorite part of visiting museums is looking at the work to figure out how it was created. We tend to think of famous artists as touched by divine talent and everything they painted was brilliant and museum worthy. Not so, the artists of the past are just like us. They started from the beginning and kept learning. They used brush, paint, pastel, canvas, and paper the same as we do today. They made mistakes, lots and lots of mistakes. They did not give up; they kept working and honing their craft even after some had reached financial success. You can see struggles in passages of some paintings and some works stand out as brilliant expressions of inspiration. I will talk about the most famous inspired work in my next blog, The Statue of David.
I studied this self portrait of Anders Zorn for as long as I could. The color in this painting is much richer than the photograph and that tiny red ribbon on his lapel is very bright in real life.
7/1/2015 8:41:33 AM
Those of you who have taken my classes know that I love to teach color theory using theater gel to show how the color of the light and the color of shadow are complements to each other. Imagine how happy I was when I spied this giant David head at the entrance of the Academia d’Arte Frienze where our studio was. He was lit by colored lights and was the perfect example to use for the color of the light lesson!
Blue light/ Orange shadow David
Red light/ Green shadow David
How to remember what colors are complements- An easy way to remember what colors are complements are is to think of the three primaries. Mix two of them together and the one not in the mixture complements the other two.
Yellow tells Violet (Red and Blue) “You look wonderful when you are mixed!”
Silly, I know but it works!
Violet light/ Yellow shadow David
