Bo-Bo a Go-Go

So, I'm finally making a dent on my Amici Degli Uffizi card, Praise the LORD. I spent most of my day/afternoon in the Boboli Gardens relaxing, sketching, and sweating--oh, and getting yelled at by a rude British woman. Anyway, the day unfolded quite nicely: after service at St. James I grabbed a quick lunch from the famous I Due Fratellini panini shop. It's a tiny hole-in-the-wall place (from the street, you literally walk into a small open space and order at the counter which barely fits two tiny Italian brothers) but proffers a dizzying array of panini: prosciutto crudo and mushrooms, wildboar salami and butter, pecorino tartufo (truffle) and arugula, herring and parsley sauce, aged lard...the list is endless. The best part is they use only Tuscan ingredients and have been serving since 1875. Gotta love 'em. I got the Tuscan salami with soft goat cheese and fennel. DIVINE:

To make sure that I get my moneys worth from the Amici Degli Uffizi card, after lunch I headed straight to the Boboli Gardens and Pitti Palace, and, by the way, I still love seeing 0 Euros as my cost on the ticket (!!!). It was absolutely gorgeous weather today, so I brought my trusty sketchbook and Country Gentleman Hat. I found a great view near the Porcelain Gallery and sweat --er, sketched-- away. Needless to say, after a few hours in the sun, I definitely needed one of these Medici-sized baths:

Anyway, I hope your day Sunday unfolded nicely and was something a go-go!

BOBO EYE CANDY AHEAD

Cypress Alley

Note: I love cypresses! Cypressi? Who knows. I think I started loving them since I discovered Van gogh's minor obsession with them, too...

The View from the Porcelain Museum

The interpretation. Hm, more poor man's French Impressionist than 15th-century Leonardo da Vinci, but it'll do! I got a little lazy with the tower dimensions so it's on a diet too. Apologies for the poor lighting; LdM apparently doesn't believe in AC or central lighting in student apartments...

Fresco Ha Finito!

I do declare that as of this Tuesday, my fresco is finished. And yes, I'm double-blogging.

I actually finished a few days ago but am blogging this today since this morning I visited La Galleria dell'Academia, which houses Boticelli's original Madonna dal Mare, the painting on which I based my fresco. It was absolutely incredible to see in person. Of course, I had to sneak in an illegal photo of the original ;-P I used my slick Asian ninja skills to pull this one off...Praise raise for camera phones, y'all!!

The Original

The Calendar Copy

My Fresco Foray

To explain why each day has a separate part, fresco painting requires fresh plaster every day. Painting on already dried plaster gives the painting a very temporal and poor quality; however, since wet plaster absorbs the paint the finished product is much more permanent and has brighter colors. Whatever's not painted onto the plaster surface, moreover, is cut off and thrown away. So each new portion of the painting has to be re-plastered, and only then can it be painted upon. Since plaster usually takes 2-3 hours to dry, one must work quickly and confidently. Thus the artist must know his/her capabilities for that small time frame. With that explanation, you can see the daily portions, or le giornate, of my fresco journey!

Day 1: Mary's face only. Much, much meticulous shading.

Day 2: Added Mary's body

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Day 3: Jesus' face finished! The shading for his chubby cheeks took the longest...Zoom in to see!

Day 4: Jesus' body finished. Legs are a little thinner than the original. So, Jesus on a diet!

Day 5: Mary's hands have arrived! And the rest of her clothes.

Day 6: The backdrop is finished here and I ad-libbed her knees...those can always get cut out ;)

In the words of Jesus, "It is finished."

A long day along the Arno

Today was a very long day. I'm actually slightly spent; thus I'll keep this short and keep you fans waiting with bated breath for more pictures.

Anyway, today's shake-down:

This morning at 8am our Art Restoration class traveled to a private Villa in Tuscany to restore an 126-year-old fresco. That sounds old writing it out, but we've restored other frescos and objects much, much older (read: 7th century, 16th-17th century). We used tempera and gouache on the dry fresco to repair the damage and imitate the original scene yet make it perfectly imperfect (the spirit of restoration, truly).

For some reason I decided painting the blank door would be a grand idea. Whoops. I cannot believe my teacher and the villa's owner, who by the way used to be the Director of the Palazzo Pitti, would let me near a fresco nearly six times my age. Anyway, afterwards, they treated us to a home-cooked, country-style Italian lunch replete with wine and olive oil straight from their vineyard and grove.

Later that evening, I also went on a boat tour of the Arno River with my school. We rode in one of the last ten existing work boats of Firenze. Apparently, prior to WWII these boats were plentiful and were used to ship sand and marble into the city for construction. Moreso, it was used for travelling from neighboring cities since the narrow, hilly streets of Firenze were havens for pick-pocketers and petty crime thefts. The boat we were on actually sunk many years earlier and had been underwater for two years. Fortunately, they recovered and restored it--and it now proudly serves as a tourist commodity! **I highly recommend the Arno Boat tour if you are ever in the area. It serves multi purposes: learn the Florentine boating history, enjoy the romantic and serene atmosphere, and have the perfect backdrop for a phenomenal facebook profile photo.

Enjoy the eye candy...should be good after a long, long, long day.

PS. The day was much longer since it included a lengthy visit to the doctor's. I have been wheezing and coughing much lately and thought it might be an upper respiratory infection. Medical school makes me paranoid. Truth.com. Anyway, turns out it was my asthma acting up. Probably from all the plaster I've been snorting.

--PICS!--

Fresco Restoration

Our lanky teacher evaluating the frescoes

Before (note: no trees, but only blobs of color)

After: more trees, more leaves, some background definition. It took a while to match the colors!

Villa-style Tuscan Lunch

Stovetop espresso after gelato

Arno Boat Tour

Gollum Siting in Cinque Terre

.....or just a very thirsty Aivisaur.

Okay, to explain this entire Gollum-esque pose en route to Vernazza (the fourth town of Cinque Terre) I must first give some background. This past Sunday a few LdM students and I decided to go to Cinque Terre, five towns strung together by precarious hiking paths, as a relaxing Sunday escapade. We had heard that the beaches in the last two towns, Vernazza and Monterosso, were incredible and had read rave reviews online. What everyone failed to mention is the fact that to get to these towns it's an 11 mile hike. Sure, one could theoretically take the train there but we wanted to do the entire hike, blissfully ignorant that the last two (from Corniglia to Vernazza, and Vernazza to Monterosso) would be at least 3 hours worth of sweaty trekking.

I'm not one to shy away from a hike, so I was, as my girl Dena would say, DTDG --Down To Get Down. We started off in Riomaggiore, the first town, where the entire hike commenced at 10:30 am with a leisurely stroll aptly nicknamed "Via dell'Amore," or the Road of Love. I so happened to be wearing my heart shirt that I purchased at a Hillsong United concert so I took a decidedly embarrassing tourist picture:

Look at that blissful ignorance! The naivety! The youth!

Anyway, from Riomaggiore to Manarola it was a petty walk, tantamount to running Kelly Drive in its entirety on a cool, breezy day. No big. We didn't stay very long in Manarola, save to take a few tourist photos, since we were making great time towards Corniglia, the third town. Once Corniglia hit, however, it was about noon-time aka lunch time. And if there's one thing Aivisaurs don't miss it's feeding. So there I sat with my delicious plate of smoked tuna and tomatoes ready to take on the world. We had whizzed through the hike and were all hopeful that we would be able to hit the beaches by 3pm, latest.

Wrong.

The trek from Corniglia to Vernazza was a dizzying array of up-and-down, twists and turns. What didn't help was that we had started off during the hottest part of the day, when Italian stores recede into darkness for siesta and the sun blazes and beats down mercilessly. Thus, though I began the entire hike with all my clothes on, I at some point ended up hiking in a bathing suit and shorts. (Don't worry, Mom and Dad, Italian men averted their eyes chastely and quickly.) But salvation came, or so it seems, when we found a small bar that served ice-cold gatorade, a great way to replenish all my lost electrolytes. Being a savvy shoppper, I opted over the powerade--since it might be more expensive-- for the inexpensive Italian gatorade (read: FAKE GATORADE), latin name: Satan's nectar.

I still had water left so I decided to save the electrolyte-replenishing for the last, and most difficult, hike. As we descended to Monterosso, the last town, I began chugging Satan's nectar. Slowly but surely, I suddenly felt my throat close off and mucus accumulate. Gross, I know. I looked down at the label and, to my surprise, the drink was pure water and sugar with lemon juice. Nothing else. Nada. Niente. Nothing. Sugar water, I had been drinking sugar water. By then, it was around 4pm, and I was beyond parched. So, the first creek I saw I just went for it. I threw off my gym bag, threw off my shirt, threw off my pride, really, and just Asian squatted all up in that. Hence, the shameless Gollum pose.

But, enough words! Onto Cinque Terre Eye Candy!

Riomaggiore

Manarola

Corniglia

Vernazza

Monterosso

Peace, or as they say in Italy, Pace