Arezzo building closeups

By request, here are some closeup shots of Arezzo's beautiful buildings. The designs and colors are still current, wouldn't you say?

Sorry that the shots are not in the best focus, but they'll certainly give you a good idea.

Left side:

Right side:

More...

For additional photos of excellent quality, see the book The Painted Facades of Florence, written by Eleonora Pecchioli and photographed by Antonio Quattrone. It is full of stunning photographs of Florence's exquisite sgraffito facades. As the book's introduction says: "This phenomenon, particularly in the case of sgraffiti, derived from the late fifteenth century discovery of frescoed underground rooms ('grottoes') in Rome, which were decorated with stuccowork motifs of flora, fauna and monstrous figures mostly dating from the Imperial Age; those found in the Domus Aurea, the splendid palace built for the Emperor Nero in the heart of Rome, attracted particular interest. Fascinated by this innovative vision of polychrome antiquity and by the imagination that it revealed, late fifteenth century artists were quick to imitate it, referring to their own decorative work influenced by those models, as 'grotesques'." (ie: grottesca) I will be posting on this favorite type of art in my upcoming post on our visit to Rome.


Here are a few peeks at the book's photos.

Theresa Cheeks, over at the Art's the Answer blog, just posted about her grottesca class with Carolina D'Ayala Valva, of the Artelier Studio in Rome. The class was held at the San Antonio studio of Leslie and Nicola Vigini. Both Carolina and Nicola are the best of the world class grottesca artists. (Can you tell how much I love it?)

Misc Italia / Tuscany and Umbria

We decided that while we loved seeing the main sights in various cities, what we enjoyed the most on our trip to Italy was to spend time wandering in the smaller towns and interacting with townsfolk. 

After leaving Venice, we drove to Roma via Arezzo, Assisi and Orvieto. The driving in the countryside is decidedly tamer than the cities, especially Rome. I think the Roman drivers are worse than in NYC and Boston!

Now grab your cup of tea, settle in and come with me. (And, again, please forgive the Ipod's not so great photos!)  Shopping? Did you say shopping? 

Hmmm, I'd like to see that architectural scrollwork on the floor and the candlestick in the back, please.

 I also like the shield lampshades.

This is in a woodcarver's Assisi shop. It was so crammed in there that you really had to look slowly. A claw foot here, a bust there, wood everywhere. Would you like a drawer with that?

We finally decided on the acanthus leaf below. It is now in the process of being gilded in my studio. (I know- we were trying to pace ourselves. As I look at the pictures, I would have loved that frame surrounding the acanthus, along with 10 other items!)  

I really like his stacks of boxes and containers.

 (How many can I fit in my suitcase?....)

There were little goodies everywhere.

 Need a cute set of mini steps?

 

Great club chair and angel and scrolls and table and pewter...

OK- back to the sights. 

I thought this building's decorations rivaled those in Florence.

A more modest building, but still beautiful.

A casual peek into a door and this is what we saw!

A closer look at the fresco:

We enjoyed Assisi's beauty, but I honestly thought it was a bit "touristy".  I did not gain any weight (even though we liberally consumed wine and had lots of chocolate), partly because we walked and walked. In Assisi, we walked to the top of the hillside town. What a view! Precisely as we reached the summit, a ferocious wind arrived and did not let up the rest of the visit.

It turned out that a storm was heading our way. Here is Assisi from the highway.

A quick stop in Orvieto:

And we were on our way south. Next week will be the last installment of my Italian series- our visit to Roma.
If you'd like to see more, visit PlumSiena blog here and here and for my favorite, here. 

An Italian groin vault ceiling... in America

How can one pass up a week in a Tuscan villa? Located just inside of Umbria, an hour from Florence, this to-die-for villa was all you'd expect it to be. (Villa pics coming later.) With the villa serving as our base, we roamed the surrounding areas and just soaked it all in.

While traveling through Arezzo (east of Florence), we fell in love with these groin vaulted ceilings in a non-descript deli. We walked in for lunch, looked up and that was it! So typical of Italy- there is such beauty at every turn.

Arezzo, Italy groin vault ceiling

A few years ago, my SO opened a boutique/cafe that was based on our passion of Italian design. We blew up our video frames of the dome ceiling that we loved in Arezzo to see the pattern and attempted to re-create those designs.

I started out with m-a-n-y sample boards to figure out the finishes; here is one of the final boards- I think I finally figured it out!

Sample board

The groin vault domes (formed by the intersection of two or more barrel vaults) began with a custom engineered metal frame.

Drywall was affixed to the metal frame and the entire ceiling, especially the many seams, was smoothed, filled, sanded, followed by filling and sanding and filling and sanding. The plasterer (Thanks, Dan!) did an AWESOME job.

 

This is how the ceiling was when we received it. Gulp!

I first primed twice and basecoated twice before even thinking of the finish layers. Then I began applying the three plaster layers, using a custom mix for each layer. The first layer was ochre and lapis blue; the second and third layers were more of what you see- the whites and lapis blues.

Then we painted the designs, some freehand and some with a few specific designs cut in mylar to be consistent on site, trying to stay as close to the original ceiling design as possible.

Once the painting was complete, we added a layer of glaze to “knock back” and age the finish.

We only had 2 weeks to take the ceiling from the raw drywall and seams state to completion.

Still adding! These are the electrical guys for the chandelier installation.

Here we are at work...

The ceiling is 25 feet up there!

Adding details

Here is the beautiful Isola Bella groin vault ceiling, ready for the chandelier to be installed!

 

We're done! Just waiting for  the chandelier.

 

Closeup view of groin vault  seam