Streetpainting Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Last week I visited Vatican City and so this Thursday chose to recreate in the streets of Florence one of the Sybils on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. I hope you like my self-portrait in this “work-in-progress” shot. I did not realize I did that until I saw the images later.

I was delighted later that afternoon as a class of Italian children came to watch me work. I offered one a pastel stick, but she shied away. Instead, her classmate asked if she could try and next thing I knew, I was passing out various orange colors and pointing to the sections of the Sybil’s skirt in which each child should color.

The kids and I had a blast together. I wanted a photo of all of our orange hands and one of the teachers offered to take it for us. I asked the kids if they wanted to be on my blog and the idea seemed to be fun to them. I handed out the last of my wet baby wipes to clean their hands a bit and then they were off to catch a train. What a delightful day and great experience for us all.





Later that evening, the capo of our group of madonnari (street painters), Claudio, arrived to see my colleague Johnny and me. [Johnny is not in most of these images because he had another job and joined me for only parts of the day.] Since he had another commission to work on with our colleague Tomo, he offered to let Johnny and me draw that next day (their normal day).

So, around midnight that first night, I wrote on the street in Italian, “Please do not clean” and we set cardboard boxes around our drawing in hopes that the street cleaning truck would pass us by the next morning. It worked this time, although when I arrived on Friday, an older Italian woman complained to me that it was bruttissima that I left such ugly boxes in the street overnight. And while protected from cars, I noticed that someone rode a bike and/or stroller through the drawing and there were lots of footprints in different directions, implying that at least one person was dancing on our work overnight!

Also, the next morning I arrived to see a man erecting scaffolding close to my work area. I am starting to wonder if the city really does own the scaffolding company as one friend told me. Florence has an abundance of this and I have yet to see the famous Duomo without it!

He was breaking off some of the metal “T”s that were used to adjust the height of each leg, telling me that it was for public safety. I photographed this one young boy who was fascinated by the process and kept telling his father to wait a moment more since he did not want to leave. He was quite cute. We finished up around 5:30 pm. People were out and complimentary, but I had dinner plans and needed to get home to wash up. Enjoy these images.

And if you are interested in learning pastels in a fun and beautiful environment that allows you to focus on art and nature, please check out my pastel workshop in Hawaii in September. http://borsheimarts.com/art-workshops/hawaii-pastels.htm

Creation of Adam

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

This past week my group of three artists drew “The Creation of Adam” from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel here in Florence, Italy. I had to start the work alone this week because my colleagues had other obligations in the morning. When there is a group, we generally mark out a grid using pigment on a string. The grid is very obvious in all parts of our drawing space. When I grid for myself, I prefer to be more subtle as I feel the grid reduces a bit the effect of the magic of drawing. While I wanted to do this Michelangelo as large as permitted, I did not want one of the gold bars embedded in the street to fall onto the face of Adam or of God.

Once I determined the overall size and marked off my squares, I quickly sketched the overall shapes. This helps me get my overall bearings, but the real purpose is to help my viewers get an idea of where I am going with my street painting. In this case, I only drew the section inside of the gold bars, knowing that as the faces and figures got developed, the drawing would be extended to the right behind the figure of God.


Shortly after lunch one of my colleagues arrived. The other came later, but only drew that first day with us.

We have received coins other than euros for tips, and once a cigarette (which charmed me to no end if you can read my sarcasm into that), but my favorite tip that I cannot pay bills with is food. One day someone put a chocolate bar in our basket. Another recent time a couple from Canada, I think, bought us a big gelato. Sweeeettt.



Last week during our Caravaggio street painting, I met Giuseppina, a fiorentina (woman from Florence). She loves movie stars and we had a wonderful talk about a variety of topics. She bought each of us a large cup of fruit from a nearby stand. And then this week, I met Vittorio. He liked my drawing of Adam and bought me a torta con fragola (strawberry cake) and a fruit juice before I rode off to my Open Studio. And he came to my art reception at Pozzo Divino the other night.

I just hope that these generous folks are not buying us food because they think we are bums and if we receive money, we might just go blow it on alcohol! ;-)

In any case, here is our drawing after the first day. The next morning the street cleaners made their obligatory pass and we started again. I improved the face the second time around, but essentially the drawing looked the same.

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Parade in Florence, Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

The Friday night before (September 26), Giovanni (another madonnaro [street painter] – from Brasil) and I left up little cardboard tents in an attempt to persuade the street cleaner in Florence, Italy, not to drive over our street art. Did not work, or maybe it did. I only had one large tire print over my face of a sibyl of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

So, Saturday’s work was not so bad. I just added more pastels and tried to feminize the face once more. And then I added hair and background.


I knew that my friend Martinho, a bandieri (flag waver), was performing on this day, but I had no idea that the parade would pass right by me on Via Calimala! How exciting this was, even if I did not get to see their performances in Piazza della Repubblica or the Duomo or in Piazza della Signoria. Gotta love the costumes and men in tights ;-)

By the time I finished in the night, I was exhausted. I had street painted Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. And I was scheduled for Monday again.
I finished out the composition in the street and even added the subtle cracks that now appear on the original fresco of the Sistine Chapel. How could Michelangelo have anticipated such beautiful wreckage?

Michelangelo The Delphic Sibyl

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Because other madonnari (street painting artists) are on holiday now, I was able to buy two days in the same spot for making my drawing the last week in September – a Friday and a Saturday here in Florence, Italy. I have not drawn on such active days, people-wise, before, so this was a treat.

I chose to paint Michelangelo’s Delphic Sibyl from the “Cappella Sistina” in Vatican City, Italy. Not being much of a morning person, I started around noon and got a decent start on the portrait drawing. I scratched into the street layers of pastel colors and I am trying to learn to do it in interesting and creative ways. Later, I blended everything with my hands (now raw and very dry: missing my fingerprints even).

Here you see that I am drawing with Carmen and her little brother Vincent: Americans who now live in Korea. Their parents took this image.


An interesting thing happened that evening – well a horrible thing for me. Somehow after this night shot was taken, I managed to use my last 30 minutes of working to make the face of the sibyl masculine! Mamma mia! It was horrible. I could see the problem when I photographed it, but in person the street painting did not look so bad. Still . . . the photographs would be all that would remain. Ugh!


Many years ago, I did a quick life sketch in paint of a rather boyish looking woman, Eugenia. One of my collectors said, “I love this painting, but can you make me another in which the face is the same, only as a feminine-looking boy?” Whoa! What an interesting proposal! Well, I began to study more images of people to determine what made a masculine vs. a feminine face. This task was more difficult than it sounds. Per esempio, one normally thinks of a tapered jawline as being a feminine trait, yet I saw many faces of young men with tapered jaws who looked more masculine than feminine, despite their youth. Allora, what to do?

Anyway, I finished my commission (“Eugene”) to the satisfaction of my collector and yes, the original painting is still available ;-)), but on this night in Florence, I was frustrated that I could not pin down my error. I later studied my photos and was able to grasp better how (and when/why) my circular face became more angular and masculine. Thank goodness the street cleaner passed over this the next morning, so I could attempt to mend my artistic ways.

Street Painting in Firenze, Italia

I drew with pastels again yesterday for the Madonnara work in Florence. This time -- no blues. I am out of blue pastels and did not want to buy more right now.
So, I chose to re-create another of my favorite works: The Libyan Sibyl of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. I love the colors and the twisting figure.

It was a fun day and I met many people; some even remembered me from last week. I even met the man who does Charlie Chaplin
impression
It was another good experience and my body thus far has not hurt nearly as much as it did
after my first day as a street painter (3 days!). This must be all of the stairs and walking that I am doing here.
You perhaps can tell that as the day went on I got more tired and my drawing was not complete by the end of the day. I added the little
figure on the left in the last thirty minutes. I also did some kind of number on that nose! Sheesh. Oh well, I received
many compliments on how I am able to capture form. For me, this was kind to hear that people can even distinguish these sorts
of comments. Isolation is necessary to do work, but this direct feedback from an audience is quite fun and appreciated as well.

I hope you enjoy -- and see you after some of my travels in the next few days.
Ciao, ciao.