Florence Street Art

 Some street art in Florence that has made me smile

In the studio, walking around Florence

 

It has been a quiet week of me painting in the studio and us walking around Florence just soaking up all the art, architecture and history (& gelato!).

Leo the studio bunny has decided I’m ok and likes to watch what I’m doing 

I got myself some new painting (reading) glasses - I was going for the Edna Mode look (No capes!)

This is where my master copy of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earing is up to. Tomorrow I tackle the hard parts of the face and rework parts I’m not happy with.

I did a bit of urban sketching - this is the view of the Duomo from the Bibliotech delle Oblate (I did a watercolour lesson here 2 years ago & I’m thrilled to see that I’ve improved).

Someone has this over their front door, just down the street from our apartment - Florence really is a living historical city

There was a street parade celebrating the Florentine New Year

Rose flavoured toothpaste!

The view on the C2 bus to the studio is really impressive

Every day Steve & Skye pick me up from the studio and we walk home for lunch. Each day we go a different route, and this day we went through Piazza della Signoria with the copy of the statue of David (the real thing is in the Academia).

The statues of lions in Florence are much more lifelike than in Rome - because Florence kept live lions in the city for hundreds of years.

I never get sick of having views of the Duomo creep up on us as we walk down the street

Hanging out next to the Duomo

These simple tools (made out of paper and cardboard) help to get relative colours correct - they’ve been an absolute game changer in me being able to get the right colour and tone (value) with my colour mixing.

Prato Lego Brick Show

 Stephen took the bus & train to Prato to go and see the Lego Users Group show on there this weekend. It was much smaller than Canberra, but there were still some seriously impressive builds. They made him feel VERY welcome, which was kind of them, and as a bonus he was able to pick up some lego to bring home for his build for the next big show in Canberra later in the year. 

Cooking Class

 We were really lucky to have the same chef Allein, who did our market tour with us. We were especially lucky that again it was just us and Allain (all the other classes we have seen have been up to 12 people, so we are especially lucky to have a private tour of the market and a private cooking class).

Stephen did most of the cooking <3 We cooked everything from scratch (except the cannoli shells)

Gnocchi with pesto (we met the people who grew the basil when we were at the market last week with Allain) 

Fettuccini carbonara

                Bologenese Lasagne (5 layers of pasta & the two sauces!)

Scillian Cannoli 

We made two Bologenese Lasagne’s and one vegetarian lasagne - so much food.

We have also been enjoying traditional Florentine sandwiches