Traditional Swiss Dinner

by nigel161803 Posted on October 28, 2011

-Traditional Swiss Dinner-

After the short walk to Chantelle’s house, I set my things down in the basement, and begin the tour of the house. There are paintings everywhere. Its a relief to see. Most poeople I know have bare walls with no art anywhere. This is not the case here. Almost every wall has a painting on it, and they are all pretty awesome. Chantelle spent four years at the Florence Academy of Art, and we have plenty of fun things to talk about. Its nice to meet someone who I can relate to, and talk to about so many things. Bekkah and I don’t relate at all any more. The more time passes the more we grow apart, and the more short her replies to me get. Unless its on skype or facebook chat. Somehow she can only communicate through a computer screen. I think that many people have this problem. Allora.
So its dinner time at Chantelle’s with Tina and I. They both speak Swiss German, and its very entertaining to listen to them converse with each other. We are having a Traditional Swiss Dinner for my welcoming to switzerland. There is lots of swiss cheese involved in this, but more specifically a plug in electric stove that has a flat grill on top for grilling bacon (yes bacon) and underneath the grill there are electric stove type deal. What you do is a slice of quality swiss cheese is placed into a small 4×4 inch tray, and you can doll up your piece of swiss cheese with vatious things like salk, pepper, paprika, onions, bacon which is cooked on the top level first. After getting the cheese all hooked up the tray is placed in the oven to melt. You can slightly melt it, or you can brown it, or blacken your cheese. It was lots of fun to try different cheeses, and different combinations of ingredients. Served with dinner was also mini potatoes, miniature pickles and mini onions. Quite tasty stuff! I came up with the combination of a layer of potatoes with bacon, onions, pepper, swiss over the top, pepper and paprika over the swiss. Super tasty. And very healthy. It was a blast to say the least. After dinner we talked about Art, and the Florence Academy, and people from school, rumours, gossip, and all that fun entertaining stuff that FAA students constantly talk about to eachother. Things in related to FAA spread like wildfire extremely quickly for this reason. Its a very tight knit school, and everyone knows everything about everything. That was fun. We talked till about two in the morning, and then hit the hay. Chantelle gave me my own room downstairs. No sleeping bag necessary, for the next ten days.

Twitt
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Going to Switzerland SOON!

by nigel161803 Posted on October 28, 2011

Me wearing Chantelle's hat and dreads... ha!
At some point along the way I met Chantelle Dinkel and she decided in five minutes I was cool and invited me to come to switzerland to paint. I was extatic. Chantelle is quite an awesome person. Lots of fun to hang out with, and we have the same childish dry sense of humor.
Now all I needed was my Bank card to go, and as soon as it arrived I let her know that I wanted to still come up. She replies giving me the green light to jump on the train, and I booked my ticket right away. Off I went.

Twitt
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Finally

by nigel161803 Posted on October 26, 2011

I didn't expect to see this:
Donkey Carts Everywhere!
My bank card finally arrives. And I am ready to make some plans. Bekkah keeps harassing me to come to Egypt, and I have no idea why she is so persistent. Maybe she is genuinely planning on being nice to me? Maybe she wants a booty call? I don’t know really. I hesitate for almost a week to book my ticket. For some reason I feel like I have to go see this place. The thrill of not knowing what its like in a third world country is drawing me. Along with that psychotic attitude filled woman, that for reasons I cant comprehend, im still interested in. When you have a broken heart you tend to do crazy things. Like going to Cairo for example. I don’t necessarily feel like it was a mistake to come here, but it would be nice if Bekkah would at least try and not be such an ass.

Twitt
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Settignano

by nigel161803 Posted on October 24, 2011

Plein Air Panoramic of Settignano
I have been meaning to take the bus up to Settignano since I arrived in Florence, but normally Ill ride the bike or the scooter to a spot. This time this scottish guy from Angel Academy wanted to come plein air painting. He had not fine tuned his painting kit yet so we had to ride the bus to Settignano to paint there in the olive orchards. It was fun. I painted over a shellaked panel which was very nice to paint on. I showed him some of my mixtures I used for painting florence.
Second session in Settignano, painted from a better vantage point...

I learned most of my mixtures from leo Mancini, and Joe Alter. I took a landscape workshop from them in this same exact spot. The student became the teacher this time. I was so happy with the painting that I had to go out the next day and paint a slightly larger panel, in a clearer spot. I even happier with the next painting because I experemented more about my mixtures, using a slightly more pastelly more chromatic warmer tones for the horizon. I believe the second painting was much more successful, not only that but it was slightly bigger.

Twitt
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The Goose

by nigel161803 Posted on October 17, 2011

I get the I get the urge to paint a large Ponte Vechio the view under Ponte Alle Grazie the next bridge down from the ponte vecchio. Its a pretty epic view. So I get down there. I get all set up. Find my view, and begin to block in the painting. All of the sudden I see this goose head pearing around the corner of the pillar of the bridge. It begins to approach me picking at the ground. I dont know if it was sizing me up or what, but it begins to get closer and closer, and nastier and nastier as it approaches. It begins to hiss at me, and its clearly pissed off. This makes painting extremely difficult, because the level of concentration that is required to capture all the complexities that is the Ponte Vecchio and Uffizi. I just couldn’t continue to paint with this god awful goose hissing at me.
I went back for a second session, and got the same thing. I planned on going back for a third session, but the dumb goose never left, and I didn’t really like the idea of harming it. Bummer. Painting Abandoned for now. I would need at least few weeks to complete this painting. I was looking forward to showing this painting once it was finished. I guess Ill just have to come back to Florence another time to get it done.

Twitt
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Painting with Maximiliano

by nigel161803 Posted on October 15, 2011

Max is one of my best friends from the FAA and he’s back for the third term of the Florence Academy of Art. He’s quite the entertainer. Great sense of humor max has. Max arrives around the 20th of September. Soon after school starts we ride the scooter up to Monte Scenario, which is one of the most beautiful places in Tuscany, in my opinion. Its a long ride up the mountain. Its twice the elevation of Fiesole, and Florence is visible from Monte Scenario, but Monte Scenario isn’t visible from Florence. The inconvenience of going to Monte Scenario is Max can only go on Staturday, or Sunday. The days that the Italians go to mass. At least 50% of the people going to church stopped and talked to us. I know coffee shop italian, and not much more than that, Most of the Italians said that the painting was “Bellino! Bello! Bellisima! Bravo! Brava! Bellisima luce! They would also almost always ask the same questions, how much, how long did the painting take to make? Is the painting for sale? We got to spend three sessions on this painting getting these questions constantly. It was a nice feeling but also very distracting. I had a fantastic time painting here.

Twitt
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Lots of new work in progress…

by nigel161803 Posted on October 13, 2011

So I have been in Florence since September 15th, loving every second of it, painting and drawing every day. There is a massive website update coming in the future for http://www.nigelrobertson.com so check back soon. I am currently working on the Florence Academy of Art Blog  and that is taking up a little of my energy I would normally use for my own site.

I currently am in need of a new camera to photograph my work for this site, and the iPhone 4S just came out which I plan on buying very soon in order to update my site better with. It has an 8 megapixel camera, which will work fantastic for photographing art.

A presto

Twitt
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Florence, Your weather is perfect.

by nigel161803 Posted on October 10, 2011

September and august were really nice. I painted a few streets spending much time on each of them. The streets are the most challenging, and they requite a minimum of three to five consistent days for me to paint. Even the most simple street is incredibly complex. My friends haven’t arrived for school yet so Im painting outside as much as possible. Ill take a day off here and there but rarely. Florence as Maureen Hyde Puts it has enough to paint for two lifetimes. She is correct. If there weren’t so many cars and scooters everywhere it would be much better to paint in. The hills outside of tuscany are very nice to paint as well. Long views are the easiest. The long view from Settignano is really fun. I ended up painting it twice this time around. I started a painting of the ponte vecchio, only to be confronted by a rabid goose. That is one big mean bird. The water in the Arno ended up rising, and I couldn’t finish the painting sadly.
I felt bad for Bekkah and her dumb decision to come to cairo. I check her facebook page to see how she is doing from time to time, mainly just hoping that her situation is improoving, and at this point it just seems to get shittier and shittier. Her kids are little daemons. They are middle to upper class spoiled brats that have no respect for anyone, especially her. The are wild and psychotic from the sound of it. To me it’s probably the stupidest decision ever to come to this terrible place called cairo. I decided I would sent her a post card I bought from the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. A postcard of a painting by rembrant his mother reading a huge book. I took my time writing on the back. Making it special, and encouraging, filling every bit of space with love and encouragement. She ended up contacting me before it got there. We began correspondance again. That was nice. She was really nice to talk to during this bit. Something I longed for. We began skype chatting back and fourth for the rest of the time I was in Florence. I offered her my supply of Raspberry Emergen-G since I can get the equivalent easily in Florence. Of course she said yes please, she asked me to also find her cranberry pills, and gas-X. I found the italian equivalent, and sent it off. She got it in a week. She was very happy about this.
One of the frustrating things about this trip is that my bank card expired at the end of september, and I ended up having to wait three weeks for it to arrive. It was just a bit frustrating. It prevented me from travelling anywhere. You cant go anywhere without a Bank Card in Europe. You are genuinely screwed if you run out of cash. So I posted up in Florence for all of October. I rented a studio with Judson Monroe, and kept my painting things there. It was a very nice studio, and I enjoyed using it. It was a great home base which was very close to Basilio’s on 55 via pergola. Second floor from the street. I painted a coulple interiors of the place on rainy days. Bekkah ended up toying with my emotions the entire time I was in Florence. She is a master of mind games.

Twitt
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Plein Air at Monte Scenario – Tuscany

by nigel161803 Posted on September 26, 2011

I have been in Florence for over a week since my return, and I have been out painting every day at about three different spots. Its been great. One of the spots is up on one of the highest mountains in Tuscany called Monte Scenario. Its possibly one of the most picturesque places I have ever been. My friend Max has been nice enough to take me to distant places in Tuscany outside of Florence in search of spots like this. I am extremely grateful to have this oppertunity.

 

The painting is about 25X35 cm Im still not quite finished with it, but its getting there. We are supposed to go back next weekend.

 

Plein aire made in tuscany by nigel robertson

 

 

Overall Im fairly happy with the progress. If you are interested in this painting feel free to contact me.

Twitt
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