Day 1
July 1 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
What a beautiful location, glorious weather! Learning about the traditional artisan techniques & selecting our blocks and after a not so light (OMG sublime) lunch we were off...some progress madeRead more
Quick shop & drink in Pietrasanta
July 1 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
Fabulous little town - so many galleries to explore this weekend.... absolutely loved these Circle of Life bronzes by Andrea Roggi
Town square uniquely has 3 bell towers - this was my favourite
Day 2
July 1 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 29 °C
Bit frustrating as we had to continue practicing the artisanal hammer technique knowing full well that tomorrow everything we do today will be removed by power toolsRead more
Day 3 air hammers
July 2 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
Today we learnt about air hammers and how to use them. Haven't quite mastered how to "collaborate not control" the tool such that it's relaxing and not tiring 🤪
The vibrations are pretty intense inRead more
Day 4 diamond saws
July 3 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C
Or otherwise known as angle grinders with an expensive diamond tipped cutting disk. Never had such formal tuition on an angle grinder so that's good new learning. Not so thrilled with the no glovesRead more
Day 5 more of the same ...
July 4 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
Fabulous breakfast blue skies extreme heat copious sweating collecting marble chips in my bra and up my nose glorious lunch (ravioli with ricotta butter & sage) and some progress.
Hopefully heading toRead more
Saturday morning
July 5 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
I skipped class this morning as my back was crippled, my ankles twice their normal size and carpel tunnel in both hands. After 1½ hours stretching and with my legs in the air, this improved enough toRead more
Sat afternoon pt 2
July 5 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
Another quirky window and more art.
Dinner started well but my main was odd - turned out to be a kind of tuna mayonnaise /Russian salad but tuna replaced by rabbit. It did not sit well but the wineRead more
Saturday afternoon
July 6 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C
One of our colleagues kindly gave us a lift into town (we're actually staying in the hamlet of Valdecastillo) and we had gelato, then drinks which became lunch once we realised of course thatRead more
Sat eve
July 6 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C
Silvio Santine! OMG that thin marble!!!
Monday wk 2
July 7 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 21 °C
So I knew that Zimbabwean stone tells you what it wants to be....but apparently so does marble! After 2 days rest & recovery I came back to my piece this morning and what was supposed to be a leaf -Read more
Wednesday wk 2
July 9 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C
So today Kyle offered me the brouchard bit for the air hammer! Oh game chanfer! Found my powered equivalent of the brick hammer I usually use. Got rid of all the ugly lumps and bumps from last week'sRead more
Thursday wk 2
July 10 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C
Getting hotter again ...but not to last week's level.
Making progress, making errors, technique improving little by little....
Environs
July 10 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C
In case people are bored of just sculpture progress...
Sleeping bee..pics of hamlet and something very high up and some indication of the 2000 step hill hike back from bar to home...not to mention weRead more
Final Friday
July 11 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C
A change from the norm, straight after breakfast we headed to a working foundry and then a marble carving studio where we could see the old techniques of making a reproduction exactly to size post CNCRead more
Friday's work effort
July 11 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 20 °C
Not very happy with "foliage" I did yesterday so I worked on refining the bird's body and getting legs & knees going.
Temperature is rising ...And today's ending position
Last Saturday
July 13 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C
Final morning in the studio. It got very hot again. I tried not to rush to do more and just make mistakes. Seems odd that I won't be working on this for months!
Came back to the house to find CharlieRead more
Wow - a beautiful environment 😘 [Alana]
Traveler
This looks delicious!