Over the last few weeks, I've been enjoying a Japanese calligraphy (shodo) course taught by Ms. Denri Takai. The course covers the materials and methods to write with a brush and ink. Readers of my blog know that I've had a long fascination with Japan so this is something that I'm very interested in from both a cultural and aesthetic point of view.
Like many things, it looks so simple on the outside. And my teacher makes it look effortless (she has been doing it since childhood and is the descendant of Dengo Takai who is a calligrapher from the 1860s). Trying it myself, I can say the challenges seem endless. The movement and shape of the brush, the consistency of the ink, the spacing of the strokes and characters are all separate challenges. Other factors come into place also such as posture and my mental state. There's no going back once the brush touches the paper so it can be intimidating. I'm still a total novice at this, but I've already realized the depth of these challenges. After class, I feel pretty tired because of the concentration required. But it's still a lot of fun and the course integrates other aspects of Japanese culture and language. Many of these principles also apply to watercolor painting so I've been thinking about how watercolor and shodo correlate. Brush control is really the ultimate goal for any form of painting, but the only way to achieve that is with lots of practice. The confidence that my teacher has is a result of training and practice, practice, practice. I feel like students sometimes try to bypass this fact by asking, "what is the secret?" I'm learning a lot with this course and I'll keep studying it on my own after the course. It's really a never-ending journey and the spiritual and artistic crossover is fascinating to me.
0 Comments
Plein air painting an early evening street scene here in Florence. The light was perfect and it wouldn't be Italy without some scooters in there. Photo credit to my awesome roommate, Gabbi!
It also hit me today how important it is to not let too many things pass by. Just as an example: there's a pastry shop/cafe that I pass on my walk home and it always smells fantastic; I can't quite describe it, but the scent is almost nostalgic--like a classic, old bakery. So I've been passing by this little cafe and saying, "oh, I should go in there..." Today, I walked past it again, but this time I stopped and turned around and went in. I practiced my Italian by asking about a certain pastry. The older gentleman behind the counter said it was a "cornetto crema" (cream horn). I counted my money in Italian and enjoyed the pastry on my walk home. I feel this same way about any opportunities. I really want to be aware of the things that I actively miss out on. It's different if I'm unaware of something or don't want to do something. But, everything has its own time window of opportunity and I'm trying to be more aware of that as I continue traveling, exploring, painting and living. Our class had an excellent guided tour of the Uffizi gallery today and I wanted to share just a few things that made me smile. I could have taken a lot more photos, but I'm generally not a fan of taking a lot of photos in a museum; I feel that the photos never do justice to the original work and they take away from my experience whilst I'm in the museum. It's a real experience to view paintings in person also because paintings aren't merely flat pictures; paintings have texture, translucency and a real depth to them that cannot be captured in a photograph. To me, it's always like meeting a person in real life Vs. doing a video chat or something. There's so much beyond the surface! The collection is full of gems and I particularly enjoyed the Titians and the Caravaggios. I've loved Caravaggio for a long time, but I was surprised by how nice the Titians look--I think his paintings don't translate too well to photographs. Of course, the museum has Raphael, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Botticelli (Birth of Venus), Rembrandt, Gentileschi, Rubens, Van Dyck, Bronzino, along with a lot of pre-Renaissance masters like Cimabue and Giotto. Maybe it's silly, but I enjoy the animals included in these great paintings also. I find it interesting that our love of pets and regard for animals hasn't really changed throughout history. The video on the left of the sleeping dog is a Titian and the cat in the right video is a Pontormo painting. Tough act to follow.. But, I'm also sharing a photo of my transfer drawing down below which I've been working on. We're going to use these drawings to create a final figure painting for the course. My still life is also going well so it's been a productive week here in Florence!
Waking up for my first day in Florence was exciting and surreal! Today was all about getting some shopping done and settling in. It's great where I'm staying because there are a few different supermarket/grocery stores all within walking distance. I went to two different ones today because I wanted to see which each one had. There's one which is a five minute walk away and it has great products and living essentials. Living in a foreign country is always sort of an alien experience because the products can be very different from what we have in the US. And it's also interesting trying to decipher what the products say on them. For instance, I was trying to buy grape jelly and ended up with blueberry. I like many of the European products better; such as the yogurt, I normally don't like yogurt, but I like the European kind. It's just a fun experience to explore and I've barely scratched the surface here. I was thinking about how last summer in Giverny taught me a lot of lessons and made it less intimidating to live in a foreign country. That was my first time living abroad and it was 3 months so I learned a lot and I gained a lot of confidence. But it's still intimidating to really be living in a different country--especially when there's a different language. I was in Edinburgh before flying to Florence and it was great because I could talk to anyone because it's all English (although some of the Scottish were a wee bit hard to understand). For Italy, I've been practicing my Italian in a language workbook, but actually speaking it in a store to ask someone "Where is the butter?" is a different experience. I guess it's about theory Vs. practice. Anyway, I've included some photos which just show some local buildings and my trip to the grocery store. The last photo was my dinner which I cooked tonight. As a side note: I wanted to be a chef when I was younger and I still love the process of making a nice meal; there are actually a lot of similarities between cooking and painting because they both require good materials combined with skill. Spontaneity and creativity is integral to both, I could go on and on, but they both give me a real sense of satisfaction and reward. That's all for today as I'm still settling in here. And I'm just going to relax the rest of tonight because my work begins tomorrow as I begin my final semester at the Florence Academy of Art. I'm really excited to meet more people and to learn more about the art that I love. I'll try to post as often as I can to document this journey and to share it with everyone who I miss back home. Ciao! Architecture Around Where I'm StayingGrocery Store Trip |
Archives
October 2024
Categories
All
|