Monday morning was another lovely sunny day. In painting that day, I switched over my emphasis of painting legs and feet and arms and hands in abstract compositions to painting peppers, squash, or various other produce I can find that evokes a human figural form. My intention is to paint organic forms of vegetables in a way that mimics the appearance of the human body. My painting teacher introduced me to the photographer, Edward Weston who takes photographs of various natural plants (including papers) to look like bodies, and takes pictures of the figure to look like plants. I also am experimenting my painting by using more subdued colors in an effort to see how my painting will differ.
I woke up on Tuesday to howling winds and blustery snow, unpleasant enough to make me not want to run. I slept in instead. At eleven a.m., my art ed class met to gather our materials for our first day of teaching! My project to teach that day was an oil pastel watercolor resist painting depicting the students’ role within their community. I was so nervous and constantly went over the Italian translation of my lesson plan, making sure I could attempt to pronounce all the words that I needed to say. When my co-teacher and I walked into our classroom, the kids were loud and crazy as usual. I noticed a few new faces from when we introduced ourselves a few days before, who I learned were Irene, Tereza, and Mattea (I just LOVE the names of each student!) The discussion portion of our lesson plan was very difficult to carry out extensively in any way, especially because I could not really delve into the students’ responses, which I am assuming were responses to the questions we were asking, although I could not be positive. The more successful part of our lesson was the actual art making. I gave the students a brief demonstration of how to use oil pastels and watercolor together and then they went off to work. Everyone worked amazingly well; as soon as each student had art supplies in their hands, they became quiet little artists. I was amused that seven of the nine girls in the class had the role in their community as a ballerina. I realized I have to learn more phrases other than “Ohhhh!” and “Mi piace!” (I like!) in order to talk to the students about there artwork, so that will be my task for this next week. Either way, the kids chatted with me non-stop, and I could catch a word here and there to understand a bit of what they were saying. These were the most precious kids I have ever seen. I feel like they could get away with anything by just smiling their adorable grins at me. When we were leaving the school, the weather had become even worse; the snow was getting heavier. I was worried I would not even make it up the hill back to our building, but thankfully I did. I had book-making next, where we learned to sew the binding of our books together. This, I soon discovered, was my favorite step in the book making process. Like knitting, I am able to get in a steady rhythm with the movement of my hands using the thread and needle to sew the pages together. The style of the first book we are making is called a Coptic book, using a Coptic stitch, which our teacher taught us. Following bookmaking, the weather (surprise) became even WORSE! The few feet back to our building was treacherous. I would have preferred to stay in my bed under blankets for the remainder of the day, but I was too hungry to miss dinner. The last trek to dinner and back was epic. I have never experienced wind howling so loud or snow blown in my face so violently. I truly thought the gusts of wind would pick me up and blow me away or bury me in snow. Everyone emerged covered in white snow. It was announced later that the Cortona schools would have a snow day the following day. Typing this, all I can hear is the wind hissing through the windows in our common room. It is making me colder, even though I am sitting under three blankets! BRRR!!! (P.S. But I would just like to make it clear that it is NOT too cold for gelato).
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