|| Art Education in Cortona

Marbling with the little ones!

Here in Cortona we Art Ed students get to het their hands dirty in art marking with the local elementary school here in Cortona. 

We had a great semester this year tackling an ambitious project.. however thats the next post. 

I created this marbling lesson plan consisting of 1 hour time (and very little lanugage.. non parlo italiano molto been).

Basically, I wanted to allow the kids to continue their abstract drawing and painting, but it the most way fun --- shaving cream. enough said. 

What youll need is a tin container (fit to paper size), some acrylic paint, an assortment of pain containers - recycled plastic yogurt cups are great!. What else... some stirrers (in this case popsicle sticks which were also used for application, paper, and of course the most foamy of foamy shaving cream.  

The kids broke up into groups where our marbling stations were. Its an easy process. The kids only need a clean, flat shaving cream surface to create masterpieces and paints at their disposal. 

All that is left is for the paper to be lightly pressed into the swirly, foamy masterpiece, carefully peeled, and wiped clean. Waa-la! 

|| Lola Brooks

Lola Brooks  was invited this semester by the program to teach metals.
Her work is nothing less than magnificent.

^^ can't take photo credit ^^
She has been teaching metals for a while now. Her resume includes teaching at RISD and Penland. We at UGA Cortona Fine Art is happy to have her as one of our professors!

|| Drawing Study

Drawing Study of Faces #1

Pen and Watercolor

Drawing Study of Faces #2 

Pen and Watercolor

|| Photography

|| Florence

|| Siena

Maybe you are familiar with the famous duo, Romulus and Remus? Roman mythology has it that these guys founded Rome. These twins are found through out Rome in sculptures, text, and drawings, but if you travel a bit north to Siena, you will find the state of the wolf feeding these two twins everywhere inside the city walls. Apparently, the sons of Romulus and Remus, Senio and Ascanio, founded the tuscan city of Siena. If anyone is into studying ancient rome, maybe you know what I am talk about.

When you walk into the city center you'll find the Duomo. This Duomo  is breathtaking, especially at first glance. I always find myself day dreaming of the years back when these huge works of art were in process of building. How did they accomplish so many daunting tasks?? This Duomo is a Gothic example of tuscan architecture. Build just as the black plague spread like wildfire, the Duomo was not actually finished according to original plans. There was an attempting to build a much larger church. Because of the plague in 1348 - the plans had to be reworked - making the transept of the origional design the nave of the duomo. If you don't know what im talking about, the nave is what you walk down to get to the altar. This is longest section of the cross-shapped floor plan. The transept is what crosses parallel to the nave - where the altar sits in the middle of the cross section. So if you can visualize this in your head... this duomo was meant to be HUGE.
The facade is like i said, absolutely breathtaking. every inch is detailed. Included on the facade is the she-wolf sculpture i had mentioned earlier. The reference to the founding of Siena. That reflief is one of many carved from the marble found on the facade.

When you walk inside its magical. The design of the floors really stole my heart away.

We got the chance to climb this tiny stair case, and to our surprise this was our view! Hello Siena

|| Cortona B&W