I moved to Firenze, Italy in August 2016 for the purpose of taking a sabbatical year to study painting and drawing. I began the year at Il Bisonte, a print making studio in San Niccolo, learning acquaforte etching on zinc and copper plates. In October, I began a series of workshops at Florence Academy of Art that ran through July 2017.
It would be hard to overstate the importance of this year to my artistic development. I keenly recall my first week at FAA, being humbled and exhausted from standing for eight hours trying to render with charcoal and without the aid of a photograph. But the progress began almost immediately. My ability to render improved; I became quicker; my management of an oil paint palette became systematic. I also just began a daily practice of drawing and/or painting in the studio or just in a sketchbook. With the studio time and the off hours practice, I made notable artistic progress over the year. I am tremendously grateful to all my talented teachers at FAA. They literally opened doors of artistic opportunity for me and rekindled a dormant passion for drawing and painting.
The work here is displayed in reverse chronological order, showing more recent work first.