fun times with a pantograph

I am spending the next few days away from the foundry learning how to enlarge a sculpture using a pantograph - oh yes I am. This has been fantastic. Setting up-

 an armature

 difficult to see but small black sculpture to be enlarged and looking out across the studio

 view from the doorway looking up into the mountains behind pietrasanta

 and the resident geese who kept tapping on the door. All this to Bach cello suite, Tchaikovsky and some Latin jazz, and no Bee Gees whatsoever

ceilings

Florence is sublime, I spent the day in the Piazza del Duomo and although this is not far from the station, I walked ALL day! not only did my feet ache, I had a crick in my neck from looking up. It is so well worth the aching feet and the jaw dropping constantly. In the Baptistry, glorious 

In the Brunelleschi chapel with some gruesome images of hell, not in evidence here, I thought they would be X rated today

the stairs going over the roof to the cupola - not for the faint hearted and there was no lift! It was even worse coming down

but the view was well worth the climb, despite the drizzle.
Today was a walk up into the mountains behind Camaoire to the Grotto, a well known local haunt. No live bears lurking in the caves any more

looking up 

                                     looking in

Archaeological markers in the ceiling









looking out

and another glorious view, this one over the Med

vespers and more vespas

Some of the Reliquaries in Florence containing bits of bodies, there was a lot of bling. There was the most sublime church music playing in each venue all day

and more vespa's in the market, no music here though

more shells

This is the shell ceiling of the 'Tribuna' room in the Uffizi Gallery. Designed by Beranardo Buontalenti  for Francesco I de’ Medici in 1584 to display  paintings and sculptures  of the Medici collection, there are a total of 6 000 shells of pinctada margaritifera - 650 mother of pearl shell in each of the 8 sections, I did not count them.

 plaster Venus

 the incredible Botticelli  Venus

 and in a shop window on my way back to the station

Ceramic shell

Last week I was able to send several sculptures off for their tour of the foundry.  After Simone did his magic on them, they are now with Ivano to be dipped to make the ceramic shell. Ivano carefully brushes on the ceramic mix to make sure there are no air bubbles

swishes them in the tank to give a thorough coating



before they are hung out to drip

and then bathed in the sandbox which blows sand every which way into all the nooks and crannies

several coats later and some reinforcing wire

 they are lined up to go to the kiln to burn out the wax. 

Pottering in Pisa

 looking up river

 a fine pathway across the top of the wall in the Scotto Basilica

 I wandered round the back streets rather than stay with the throng on the main Via Roma where it was too crowded to see anything. Hence why I came across a Vespa convention in the Piazza Santa Catherina. I finally ended up close to the Leaning Tower

On the way back to the station I found the Vespa's were multiplying. sadly no acrobatics were planned

scree and no snow

 

I took a day to go to Carara just a few miles from where I am staying and the home of the most amazing marble. We went right up into the clouds, no bird song and cold, the stillness and the white marble scree making it feel colder. That high, the views are superb, looking down on the road that the James Bond "Quantum of Solace" car chase took place and with the Mediterranean in the distance about 5 miles away. En route, the road felt at 45 deg and usually had a sheer drop. Not many fallen vehicles were sighted 

 The skyline is now, thankfully protected. Where before some mountains were lowered and there is a completely unnatural horizontal skyline in some places, now they have to maintain the current profile and the mountains are being cut away in tiers

lumps of marble as big as a room

just beautiful