Tuesday, February 6, 2007

rewind pt3

The day after the fair I got a ride to the airport and flew to Florence Italy. I had just spent almost all of the last 5 years drawing, usually between 14 to 18 hours a day, so it felt great to get rid of my apartment and studio and leave. I packed some clothes, a few books, and enough art supplies to last a couple of months.

I didn't really take too many photos of Florence, my camera was acting funny, but we bought a disposable camera at some point, so I scanned some of those.... They look a little weird, I guess my scanner needs to be calibrated... Here's Carolyn, I think this is just down the street from our place...


You can see the mopeds on the left hand side, they are everywhere in the city. In Toronto I always thought mopeds were goofy looking, some dude speeds past you on one and you just want to clothesline him or something, but in Florence mopeds look all tough and badass somehow, I can't really explain it. Guys wear really feminine jeans there though, with eagles stictched into the butt and weird bleach stains and shit, I never really got use to that, its like a city of boyband members... I was talking to Carolyn a few days ago and she said that she got hit by a moped, it was bound to happen sometime, they tend to drive pretty crazy there. Luckily she's mostly OK.

Heres our place, it was huge, we shared it with two great guys from Carolyn's school, they were really welcoming to me... Carolyn took these photos when she first moved in there, a few months before I arrived, so its pretty empty looking...



Right across the street was the Specola, the oldest taxidermy museum in Europe, or maybe it is the largest, I can't remember. It was founded in 1785, most of the specimens are about 100 years old. Basically the place is a giant zombie-animal warehouse. The gums are rotted away and the eyelids are gross. In some cases wounds were not sewn up properly or fingers rotted away, so there are exposed bones. The place rocked my world, I got an open pass and drew in there almost everyday. Here's some photos from the museum:

And heres some scans of the sketches I made. I did lots of birds, I'm really getting into drawing them, I mightuse some of these for an upcoming Road of Knives page:

Carolyn set me up with a makeshift studio in the dining room. I played around with some acrylic and watercolour on paper and a couple of larger mylar pieces. Once I get that work scanned I'll post it on here...

Hmmmmm...thats all I have to write about Florence. It was a great trip with lots of fun stories, but I won't type them out here, its not the same without photos anyway. Two months of relaxing, drawing, and thinking. Oh, we took a trip to Rome and Paris during Christmas, I'll post some pictures in the next (and hopefully last) recap...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, i just found out about your work from a guy at school and i think you should see if you can draw other animals like bugs.

Nik Dudukovic said...

jesus...
(in regards to the sketchbook stuff)

Chris Rywalt said...

You see? These drawings are great. You don't need to add all the techno crap. It's implied in your style of drawing animals. You already have a very heavy, sculptural, solid drawing style. You take something which flies and make it look like it's made of steel. Adding in all the quasi-mechanical details only overworks what's already there.

Again, just my opinion. And I'm a known idiot.

Nik Dudukovic said...

also, those 88 birds...are those drawn in a moleskine? if so, jesus x100000....

Outrist said...

hey man
congrats on whitney!
awesome drawings :) bet you're out celebrating..
well once you've settled down feel free to email me! thanks!
-Em

Anonymous said...

I posted on a orevious entry but was fraid you missed it, I jsut wanted to say that your new works onpaper seem really clitorific. I'm dotrry I;m drunk right now but I really do love you work. Bye bye.
Erin

Nicholas Di Genova said...

Hey Emese, sorry I've been out of touch for so long, shits been crazy. Once things settle down a bit I'll give you a shout. Celebrating? I wish, naw, I'm chained up in the studio...

Yeah Nik, the birds are done in a moleskine, I'm working on a second similiar drawing, all mammels this time... I'll post it on here once it's done...

Blaine Fontana said...

my god, are any of these for sale? if so please email me: blaine@totembookmedia.com

RickyKruger said...

hey...no idea who you are...i might have met you in my travels..but i cant recal..was going through my emails of years past..and yours came up with a mention of this blog....wow!..so impressed with your work..haha..if you remember me from somewhere let me know.haha..Ricky Kruger from canada...travelled through Europe and ecaudor in past years..might have been there..lol..anyway,.keep up the great work!

RickyKruger said...

hey...no idea who you are...i might have met you in my travels..but i cant recal..was going through my emails of years past..and yours came up with a mention of this blog....wow!..so impressed with your work..haha..if you remember me from somewhere let me know.haha..Ricky Kruger from canada...travelled through Europe and ecaudor in past years..might have been there..lol..anyway,.keep up the great work!