Drawing with Suzi Davidoff

This is the first charcoal drawng I did on the course with Suzi Davidoff as my teacher. She is a very inspirational and enthusiastic mentor. We started with an ink and charcoal wash - being careful not to cover too much of the page. Then we went into the garden and did a contour charcoal drawing using a soft charcoal pencil. I focused on an oleander shrub and began contour drawing - 90% looking at the flowers and leaves. and 10% looking at the paper. This contour drawing formed the basis of the drawing - the skeleton. Then we went back and sometimes kept the line from the initial contour drawing and sometimes just left it in the background or sometimes erased it. The drawing was built up and eventually finished using many layers of drawing and charcoals. Here is a detail to explain how the contour information sits in the background.

And the finished work

I love the technique

From the garden in Terni

 a very hot summer day - some plants from the garden on the marble table

 

At Terni

Here I am in Terni on  drawing and printmaking workshop. The venuue is La Romita and it is a piece of paradise. Up on a hill - an old (ex) monastery, with wonderful cooks and a luscious garden.
The first week is printmaking using a a solar plate - exposed to UV - to make a printing plate.
First assignment - work out what marks do when the etching process takes place.
Here is my test plate:
The first is a sketch on frosted  transparent acetate

 The first print was so dark nothing much came out. This is the second (ghost) print.

MAXXI National Museum of XXi Century Art

Top of the list on arriving in Rome was a visit to the MAXXI. It is a new museum - opened in 200. The architecture is stunning.
There were several exhibitions of Italian 20th century artists. But the exhibition that I enjoyed most was called 'the sea is my land'  photographs by 22 artists originating from countries bordering the Mediterranean. The show was sponsored and commissioned by BNL to celebrate its 100 years in business.
Two works really appealed:
Taysir Batnijis  "Watch Towers"  2008. From a distance they looked like the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, but when you look more closely you can see that they are indeed images of watch towers. They were taken by the artist in the West Bank and some of them had to be taken in a hurry to avoid difficulties with authorities.

The other really favourite work was by David Maljkovic and was called "Recalling Frames" 2010. These works were a montage of stills fro the Orson Wells film "The Trial" based on Kafka's novel. The film was shot in Zagreb in 1962.
The artist included images of his own, taken a the same locations as those in the film.
The collages are very eerie and evocative. People float in and out of the sections of the montages - and the mood of The Trial, and the bleakness of the locations is Zagreb gives the works an existential feeling

In Rome visiting churches

 Dan Brown territory

Walls of Rome

walking the streets of Rome looking at the Roman walls.......

Melbourne to Hong Kong to Rome

 Being in an aeroplane for close to 20 hours ..allows lots of time to watch movies and read. A luxury in itself.
The view of Hong Kong where we stopped over for 2 hours was sensational