On Thursday, May 15, I began another street painting on Via Calimala in Florence, Italy. This time, I challenged myself with a Bouguereau – a child’s face. He created the original painting ”La Tricoteuse” (“The Little Knitter”) in 1882.
A bit of a stressful thing about street painting is that while your good days happen in public, but so do your bad days. I have learned that major errors that happen in the beginning of creating a drawing usually are a constant struggle throughout the process. In this case, it is difficult to get rid of the poor attempt and start again. You can see here in this first image that I have already done a horrible job with the eyes. I never did get them right (or the level of contrast on the shadow side of the face, the mouth, the chin, etc.).
The mother of the two German children that I invited to draw with me took this second image. The rules of the madonnari state that no other person is allowed to draw in our spaces. But those kids were so cute and interested and I happened to have a large area of white background, so . . . occasionally, rules must bend for the greater good. And yes, I did receive the mother’s permission to post this image of her children.
I madonnari (the Italian word for street painters) all had a large street painting festival in Nocera Superiore, south, near Naples on Friday and Saturday. I really wanted to go, but with my never-ending influenza, I worried that a trip might set me back again. However, since all the madonnari would be gone the next day, Claudio (the organizer) told me that I could leave my drawing that night and keep working on it the next day. I decided to take advantage of this and work at a slower pace. This next image is how much I had completed by midnight. I worked in the studio on Friday morning, my last day with the model Ernesto. When I returned to my square on Via Calimala at around 2 p.m., here is what the street cleaner did with my drawing. You can see a lot of evidence of the texture of the street. Some spots, such as the two on the girl’s neck, do not accept pastel well.
Most of the drawing is still intact, so I set about repairing her, starting of course with the face. But shortly after that, the rains came – again! Allora, my one day as the sole working madonnari in Florence was a wash. I returned to the studio to work on my unfinished écorché drawing and prepare him for the upcoming exhibition this Thursday.
Ciao domani,
Kelly
PS Happy Birthday, Dad, and also to Aunt Chris.
