This is the beginning of our first official week in Cortona. I am excited to finally have all my classes underway, and getting into my routine here. Monday was a gorgeous day. I started out the day with the most delightful run I have had so far, exploring again where I went on my walk the previous day. All the Italian people that I pass on my run always wave, smile, and say hello. It is so pleasant. The only class that I have on Mondays is my painting class, where I was already working on my painting. I was making great progress on my painting, decided on shade of pinks and purples for the background of my red objects, when my teacher, Susie, came up to me to tell me that she wants me to paint the colors that I see in the actual background. So I then had to paint over all my beautiful pinks and purples. I was a little upset about that, but I figure I have complete freedom after this painting to do anything I would like to do, so I will put up with it for now. Monday’s dinner again proved to be way more fun and nourishing for the vegetarians than the meat eaters. I think the meat eaters are starting to notice that the vegetarians are being much better fed and are thus becoming jealous. This is the least of my problems. Just so you have an idea of what we have been eating for dinner, this dinner, after our lovely first course of pasta, consisted of delicious roasted peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and this purple cabbage vegetable. In addition, we had chick peas, green beans, and salad. Everything is extremely colorful, which is important to me of course. I have also been drinking a glass of wine with each dinner, and so far, my favorite kind has been a pink wine (of course) called Rosata. In my opinion, the best desserts are when they serve us a beautiful fruit plate. Fruit is a perfect way to end a meal.
On Tuesday, I had my second art education class and my first paper/book making class. I am really enjoying my art ed class. The teacher, Erin, is one of my favorite professors. We have been doing some interesting activities together that can be applied to younger classrooms such as acting out scenes occurring before or after a specific painting or creating narrative visual art piece from listening to music. Afterwards, I had my first paper/book making class. We are started out with papermaking and later on in the semester we are going to explore book making. I love my teacher, Amy. I think it is because she gives great demonstrations and instructions, but she occasionally messes up, but embraces her mistakes in a cute way. Kind of like Ms. Frizzle. Anyway, we got a brief introduction to basic paper making. There are a lot of terms and vocabulary, but of course the best part is the actual making of the paper. It is a very wet process. In the future I am going to need my rain boots and raincoat unless I want to get completely soaked.
Wednesday is an open day for me until 5 p.m. when I have my art history class before dinner. During the day, I went on a long beautiful run along the mountains again and then later in the afternoon I wandered around Cortona. I discovered a little preschool with a very fun looking playground. I also visited the chocolate shop, where there are the most beautiful chocolate creations, some little delicate truffles that are so beautiful they could pass as sculptures. Wednesday was my suite mate, Jordan’s 21st birthday. That night at dinner, we all sang to her in both English and Italian, and the restaurant presented with a huge layered dessert, with custard or pudding and this puff pastry.
Thursday morning, my run turned into an exciting adventure. Because I was not in the mood to go uphill, I decided to take a road that I had not been on before that winds all the way down the mountain (and yes I did realize that I would eventually have to climb back up). It eventually leads to a neighboring town called Camocia (spelling?). This town was not nearly as quaint as Cortona, but much more busy. There were people, cars, and shops everywhere you turned. I stumbled upon this giant wonderful grocery store called the Coop, which many people had been talking about before and I naturally had been dying to go explore it, due to my love of grocery stores and markets. This was by far the biggest Italian grocery store I had seen so far. It was really fun to see the wide selections of things. There was a whole aisle completely devoted to pasta, another completely filled with tomato sauces, and another entire corner of the grocery store was filled with olives! Also, I was excited because this was the first grocery store I had seen so far with an actually baking aisle! Until today, I though people never baked; now I am relieved. I took note though that there are very few cake mixes, brownie mixes, and that sort of thing. I ended up buying some spinach and some carrots in bulk that I later used to make a delicious salad when I returned to Cortona (it was a long trek back up the mountain!) That afternoon, I had my painting class again. We critiqued our still lives and then began to stretch canvases for our next project of what will be any direction we choose. I am considering doing a series of figural portraits of my self...perhaps partially clothed? I am still not sure, but of course will keep you posted! Susie, my professor, has urged me to use a big scale with my paintings, so I am currently in the middle of stretching the biggest canvas I have ever seen. It is double my size. It has taken a lot of energy to put together so far, and it is still not finished yet (I have been working on it all afternoon). I am both excited and nervous to actually begin painting on it. I realized that all of a sudden, I am becoming super swamped with work. I have my painting, art ed preparations, readings, and an art history presentation to prepare! Yikes! All I want to do is wander and visit grocery stores and markets! I have to remind myself that I am not exactly on vacation…this is actually study abroad.
No comments:
Post a Comment