Casa Buonarroti

Today was a very productive day. I had received an email from my sculpture professor late last night stating that we needed to bring a sketchbook on our class field trip today. Since all of mine are either in DC or LA, I made a quick run to the leather market (which just so happens to be about a block away from my apartment) to get a beautiful Florentine book pictured below. The book itself is more of a burgundy color, but my flash was on so it appears brighter than it actually is.

After my quick trip, I had to go to one of my two classes of the day: Women in the Arts in Italy, which went better than I thought it was going to. At AU, I dreaded the art history courses because lectures only consisted of photos, and no written content, making it hard for me to write everything down. This professor, however, writes down the important pieces of the lecture and still has plenty of pictures to show. Part of the reason I like this class is also because we go on many local field trips, plus a trip to Bologna and another to Mantua. In fact, we have a field trip to the Palazzo Davanzati, where the Museum of the Florentine House is.

Since I have a very short break after Women in the Arts in Italy, I decided to hang out in the SACI garden, which was very nice until it started to rain! 

So of course I walked to my class, which is directly to the right of the SACI garden.. This is the entrance to the outdoor area, where we worked today. There is also an indoor area which was pictured the other day.

Today was an exciting day in sculpture because we haven't even had classes for a week and we already went on a field trip! Today we went to Casa Buonarroti, a property owned by Michelangelo. Fun fact: the side street to the building was nicknamed dirty marble because that is where he kept the marble he was using for his sculptures. This was one of the pieces we saw, which Michelangelo created when he was 15 or 16. 

On the way back, of course I had to take some touristy pictures (though I will probably have a million Duomo pictures by the time I leave Florence.. I've already taken 144 total pictures and I haven't even been here for a week!)

When we returned to SACI, we still had a little time to work in class. During that time, I began to sketch on my inch-thick piece of clay. Eventually, we will add more clay to make it more three dimensional, and after that we will set the entire thing in a plastic mold. For this project, I'm doing several horses. My sketch isn't quite done yet, but I felt like a real artist today so here's a picture anyways!

Ciao for now!