Bits and Bobs (Odds and Ends)

Flotsam and Jetsam? Sorry for yesterday's "esoteric" post. I had some trouble posting images to blogger and was unable to come back to it until today. Here are the bits and bobs:





And here is an entirely unrelated quote from Harold Speed:

It is this perfect accuracy, this lack of play, of variety, that makes the machine-made article so lifeless. Wherever there is life there is variety, and the substitution of the machine-made for the hand-made article has impoverished the world to a greater extent than we are probably yet aware of. Whereas formerly, before the advent of machinery, the commonest article you could pick up had a life and warmth which gave it individual interest, now everything is turned out to such a perfection of deadness that one is driven to pick up and collect, in sheer desperation, the commonest rubbish still surviving from earlier periods.

Landscaping

This last weekend, thanks to an inspirational visit from some good friends, I began a fun reintroduction to landscape painting. Here are two small (5X7 inch) studies:




My kind friends left me some extra canvasses, so I'm going to try to start working on larger sized pictures in the evenings this week.

Trading Up

This weekend I found myself walking through a park in Florence, wondering if I had enough cash on hand to buy both a bit of food and a shirt that would be cooler than the one I was wearing (the city was quite a bit hotter than I had expected).

I was drawn, by some cheerful instrumental music, toward a gathering of young people. There were a lot of dreadlocks, and a lot of happy faces. There was a table there full of books and clothes -including just the shirt i was looking for. But no prices.

I sat in the grass listening peacefully and a moment later I realized I was sitting next to someone I knew. So I asked my friend if the clothing on the table was for sale. She explained that it was a clothing and book exchange. You just put something of yours down on the table and take something in trade.

Everybody wins. And my new shirt still smells vaguely like incense!

Sketchbook Page: a young horse that was born here a few weeks ago:

Speed

I'm currently enjoying a book called The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed. It's a sort of technical look at the process of drawing with a focus on that fine line that separates academic drawing (and painting) from really good work work that has the spark of life.

It's fascinating stuff, even, I think, for the non-artist. And its written in an approachable manner. Plus, Speed seems to have a sort of general, jeering, almost comical disdain for art students (supposedly his intended audience) which the reader may find entertaining.

My evening project these days is the statue below. The design is based on a forgery of a mediaeval work. I have a fascinating book here filled with pictures of forged mediaeval and renaissance artwork. The artists did not make exact copies, but rather new pieces, loosely based on originals and carefully aged so that you would think they were hundreds of years old.



Anyway, here I am again, posting pictures of half-fiished work.

And one final recent discovery -brush-pens are best for doodling dwarves:

A Sensible Platform.

I've started reading the Narnia books to my girls. We just finished The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and I was struck by this description of the reign of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy as the kings and queens of Narnia:

And they made good laws and kept the peace and kept good trees from being unnecessarily cut down, and liberated young dwarfs and satyrs from being sent to school, and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live..

You can call it "throwing away a vote" if you want, but I'm going to write in "C. S. Lewis" this November.

Who We Were

So there's an interesting Meme goin' round the internets at the moment: DRAW YOUR TEENAGE SELF. It's a pretty interesting excersize in looking backwards. Here's my version (click the pic if it's too small):



Here are a few others I enjoyed:
Clio Chiang
Jake Parker
Vera Brosgol
Tony Cliff
Jake Parker

If anyone who drops by here has done one, let me know in the comments!

Florentine Adventure and Clay Time

This weekend I took a semi-impromptu, and highly enjoyable, trip to Florence. I remained indecisive about whether or not to go, but with Anna's repeated assurance that everything and everyone would be "just fine" if I took the weekend away, I finally tossed a couple things in my satchel and started walking down the mountain.

With no fixed plans, I just decided to go on foot in the hopes that someone would give me a ride to Pontremoli (where there is a train station). Someone did. And I managed to get myself to the station (a 12 mile trip) without having to walk more than 4 or 5 miles.

By evening I was back in Florence, reconnecting with friends, smelling the studio smells, telling stories, buying great art stuff at Zecchis, staying out late and just having a fantastic time.

And at home I've been buying these packages of inexpensive terra-cotta clay for Angelica and Zita. We split a package the other day and I made a little sketch of a Madonna and Child. There's a small bottle in the middle:

MacBook Arrives

Okay, I think I'm back online for real this time. My sleek new MacBook arrived today after several phone calls and a really touchy moment when one operator told me the package was in France. The courier did ask us to meet him down in Pontremoli, but we explained that we didn't have a car and he was good enough to drive up to Gravagna. And Huzzah, I say.

And just for the sake of posting pictures, this is a portrait of Anna that I started a couple years ago when we were last here. This little project ended in frustration because Anna had to keep getting up to help the kids. So I only ever got about about 45 minutes into the painting.



This time around, however, I have high hopes.

iBook is Dead

Well now ol' Compy has up and died. So I'm back to checking e-mails and making quick entries on a friend's laptop.

My new Macbook was scheduled to arrive today but that could mean ANYTHING. The FedEx guy will probably arrive at the door with livestock and say something like "A new Macbook!?! It says here" 8he stops and looks at his list "It says here you ordered a crate of chickens."

At least the sun is back.

La Volpe e la Bambina

On Saturday the merry band of Hatkes went out to a movie together. All five of us! We're living without a car, and this was our first evening outing to Pontremoli since our arrival.

The film was La Volpe e la Bambina -a French film from Luc Jacquet, the creator of March of the Penguins (another favorite here). I can hardly find words for how beautiful the film was -it was like watching your favorite illustrated picture book come to life. The story, about the friendship between a girl and a fox, was simply told and, in it's own way, profound.

Though it will likely be hard to find in the states, La Volpe e la Bambina (Le Renard et l'Enfant) has my highest recommendation.