Day Trip to Siena & Work Update

This past weekend was pretty mellow.  On Friday I went to the opening of a student show I was apart of.  I had two pieces in the show and got some pretty nice compliments on it.  Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the event.  On Saturday a few friends came over for some Thai food.  I attempted to make Pad Thai, but didn't really have the ingredients, and also made yellow curry.  We filled ourselves and watched a movie.  Sorry again - no pics. 

On Sunday I went to Siena for a day trip.  I've been feeli

ng kind of "city locked" and wanted to go somewhere less crowded.  I woke up early and headed for the station.  I was going to take a bus directly there, but couldn't find the ticket office, so I caught a train to Empoli and a bus to Siena.  On the bus ride, the driver side swiped a parked car!  From what I could pick up, the car was illegally parked and the bus driver tried to avoid it, but someone walked in front of us (not uncommon in Italy) and he had to avoid him too.  Anyway, during the "break" I spoke with an Italian kid and let him listen to my ipod.  

Anyway, we finally got to Siena, about 4 hours after leaving Florence.  I found my way from the station to the city center via a trail through a little wooded area and lots of steep streets.  The city is beautiful!  Very old with appropriate modernization.  

Here's their Duomo.  Talk about decorative and decked out.  Inside was way more extravagant that the exterior.   After walking around for a bit I stopped to get a giant slice of pizza and ate in the sun at the Piazza del Campo.  This piazza was massive with a slanted ground.  It basically looked like a giant basin.  

Of course when there are people eating in public there are pigeons.  This kid was doing his duty and chasing them away. 

Siena.  It was a good day to clear my mind and a nice reminder that I'm in Italy and not just in a city.  

Ok, here's a little update of work.

We started drawing the figure in my pastel class.  This class is starting to reveal my pallet as I tend to go for the same colors in a lot of my drawings.  

This was my midterm for my pastel class.  My teacher likes to make ridiculous still lifes for us to draw, and the midterm was no exception.  Its not great, but I'm happy with it considering the amount of time we had.  

And now...Sculpture.  I know I've been kind of keeping it a secret.  Its not because I think its good (actually the opposite).  It just takes so long that I didn't want to post with pictures of a piece of marble with dents in it.  But its finally in what its final form (for the most part), so heres' a little catch up. 


Next week I'm going to start on the texture of the wood and work on making a few branches a bit thinner.  

Italian phrase of the day: Domani ho un quiz per il mio corso Italiano, quindi adesso devo andare e studiare.  - Tomorrow I have a quiz for my Italian class so I now I have to go and study.