Merry Christmas!!

Yes, I know, it's not original as a text... but anyway I made this simple illustration in a hurry, because I wanted to leave some hand made cards to my closest friends and kindred. I succeded in doing about ten cards like the one I post here. I used carbon paper, watercolor, ecoline and fineliner. Everyone is a bit different. In this I tried to write with a nib pen and red ink but the result was poor... partly becuase the tool didn't just fit (the watery ink and the rough paper) and partly because I suck at hand-writing... Anyway, I still have to begin to deliver these effort.. who knows the reactions!! :P

Oil painting demo at Russian Academy in Florence

Hello, this November I had the positive surprise of noticing that the Russian Academy of Art of Florence shared some workshops on Friday evenings. It was convenient for me with my work timetable, so I was glad to take part of some of these worksops, and some of them are still to come.

The first...

Sketching Sunday

Hi all!! I want to share some recent sketches I made during the last Sunday. It was a sunny day, a bit cold in respect to what we were got used to during this Novemeber, but I enjoyed a bit of sun in the neighbours of my house. Here it is a study of a bush (dog rose)

Life drawing at FAA 29/10/2015 and 05-12/11/2015

Hello!! During the last week, I succedded in attending free figure drawing session at the Florence Academy of art. In this post I want to round up the last three drawings I made. And the pictures chronologically:

The height of the figure is about 20 cm. I'm quite ok with the right side, where the light gives up to the shadow. As usual, I had to struggle a lot with lower limb, and  no time to study the belly in depth.

Drawing Course 6

Here it is another post about my old drawing course. The exercise is basically the same. We had to make a copy (sorry, can't remember the author), but this time we inked it with fineliner (about 0.1, 0.4, 0.9 diameter). The original is a beautiful etching of a villa:

Sketching nature in October

Here they are some recent sketches done on location. October has been warm and temperate, and also November seems to be the same. These are all from the surroundings of where I live:


A study of a tree, the way to render foliage with fineliner, and some zoom-in of the leaves and seeds (some sort of maple).

Life Drawing 22/10

Hello!! New year at the Florence Academy!! They are so kind that allow external people to attend a couple of hours of a posing model. This time I tested spolvero paper with a set of hard sticks brown pastel from Lyra. I should have drawn the entire body, but I preferred to make a portrait, because I was in a favorable position in regard of the model's face and also I wanted to warm up with something I'm more confortable with, that is the portrait. So first hour I was standing in front of the easel drawing the head, second hour I was sitting and sketching the whole body..

Still life

Here is a still life I made with charcoal (pencil, powder and sticks) some years ago (late 2010 or first months of 2011), It was done from life in about three hours. Some dark were added after using a spray fixative a couple of time. I like the settings, this are familiar objects, and after all I like this drawing, my eye was better traind at that time... but the base of the "tripod" object is wrong. Anyway,  charcoal is a good medium because it's forgiving, it' similar to (monochromatic) painting but easier to set up and cheaper. For me maybe can be hard to obtain details and little nuances with this medium, but this can be an advantage ad you can't lose yourself in details ;)

Drawing course 5

Another lesson from the old course. This lesson was self made, in the sense that I missed the class, and I totally made it without teacher's guide. I took advantages to experiment with carbon pencils and sticks by Cretacolor.It was a more loose and fast copy, but fun anyway. I advise you to change the material you use. It's true that's enough a pencil and a kneaded eraser to explore such a lot of worlds, but even changing can nurture and renew the passion in drawing. Beside the brain is stimulated by new and different possibilities of a different expression.

The original

Plen air oil sketch

Hello!! Here I post a plan air I made in August 2014.

Figure Drawing 14/03/2015

Here it is another figure drawing at the Florence Academy of Art. I tried sanguigne in pencil and a red pastel in stick. Here is work in progress after about an hour.

Drawing Course 4

I'll share today another couple of works I did in my drawing course.

Here it is a portrait from Giovanni Bellini "Men with turban". The reproduction I was copying from was as bad as usual. I think I missed some proportion, some features are off, and the chin is a bit diferent.. anyway, the portrait is something good to train yourself, because the similarity is hard to achive and dipends on the correct placement of every feature and every wrinkle, But initially you can't get lost in details, you have to focus on the main shapes, like the skull, the jaw, the gesture of the neck, the cheekbones, the height of the nose, of the eyes, of the eyebrows, of the mouth, and so on... There are some kind of different approach to drawing. As you can see from the lines on the copy, when you draw from a photo and you have to learn, you can trace some lines that lead you to reconstruct correctly the image. The accuracy of the measure estabilishes the similarity. It can seem like a boring surveying, but it's important when you begin to keep accuracy and patience to train the eye and the end. Even when you have done lot of exercise, you can do sometime this kind of copy to keep the habit. The "original"..