Sunday, June 25, 2006

Wedding Weekend and Pigeon Poo

Some more pigeon and wedding stories although I promise no horrible pictures of myself (thanks a lot jon!)

1. Pigeons take no prisoners.
2. Pigeons do not like watercolors.
3. Pigeons like the Campidoglio (see below for information)
4. Italians like to be married at the Campidoglio.
5. Expect 7-9 weddings every Saturday and Sunday.
6. Expect rice to be thrown on bride and groom as they exit the church (and have their first kiss which is strange to me)
7. Pigeons like to eat rice.
8. Pigeons poop when they eat too much rice.
9. Beware sitting/sketching/ watercoloring .... or this may happen to you (picture to be inserted here but it is too late right now)
Note* This is abnormal pigeon doo. Jon believes that it was possible a "fling poo monkey bird"

Campidoglio - located at the top of the Palatine hill, this piazza backs up to the forum. The Campidoglio was retrofitted by Big Mikey to create a "unified" composition. We drew the facades of the Campidoglio on Tuesday (attempt 1 at our assignment), Wednesday (for watercolor - see above pictures for visual), on Thursday (to diagram the piazza), and on Saturday (to finish the assignment). I never want to see it again.

Watercolor Wednesday-
First attempt at watercolor seemed somewhat successful. I enjoyed it much more than our other pencil and charcoal assignments. for some reason I have patience with watercolor that I just cannot force myself to exercise with charcoal so I am looking forward to more of those assignments next week.

I have been reading up on the families that made Rome, the Farnese Family in particular (jons fav.). We sat on the bench outside of their Palazzo (aka Mansion) one day this week and I read the history of the place, interior, fountains aloud to jon until he fell asleep...which was at the second page. I have a few more family histories to get through before the week ends and we leave Rome. Not to mention that I am 1/3 through Angels and Demons (Precursor to the Davinci Code) ...and I will continue reading it as long as SOMEONE does not keep telling what is going to happen!

This weekend left no time for rest. We left at 8 am on Saturday and didn't return until 9 pm. Same deal for today.;. We drew two churches and a facade today although it was somewhat anti-productive as a result of the Italian June Wedding Phenomenon. .. we wandered into one today in a beautiful circular chapel and somehow could not leave....because it is circular every person can see your every move...great to see the bride and groom...not great to hide from italians giving you dirty looks.... Italian weddings are moved in and out of churches like court cases...one florist rolls out the other rolls in...today we tried to fit in by snagging an abandoned baggie of rice ... and they totally threw us off by throwing confetti! Its a hard transition to another culture, but we are trying.

Tomorrow we venture to the Tempietto - a must for any architect - it is a small temple within a courtyard ( I know it sounds like all the stuff we draw) The tempietto is one of the few things in Rome that I had the opportunity to sketch last time I was here (Steve, Cross the Border Mix?) So I am anxious to see if I have improved when I draw it tomorrow - Lets hope so!

Lastly, I appologize for no pictures on this posting, it is late and Jon assures me that the reason he took so long using the computer was loading the picture files.... I am convinced it was because he was watching Redsocks updates on Espn. Either way I got to read Angels and Demons in peace. Long day, I will try to post pictures tomorrow... (especially the now notorious picture of Carl being pooed on while watercoloring)

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey JTH, are you going to Pompeii or not?

Spolia=ancient Roman archeological fragments reused by subsequent civilizations that were too lazy to cut their own marble. They ARE NOT junk ;-) and if you look closely sometimes you can find Latin and/or Greek inscriptions (insert dork comment here)!

8:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No rest for the weary students, eh? Never did see any weddings in Roma as we weren't around for the weekend nor were we there in June. Pigeons were better behaved, tho, in the early Spring.

Early Roman architecture must tell us that pigeon was a staple in their diet, given all of the open horizontal surfaces made available for nesting.

I understand much of the really old structures have had to be reinforced not just due to age and our species penchant for making war, but because of auto/bus/truck/train traffic and the vibrations they create. Is this reinforcement visible? Stone is very strong in compression, but a bit lacking in high frequency cycled-impact or shear, right?

Also, how did these early artichokes, I mean architects, account for folks being able to cleam the outside of the tall buildings and columns? Staging or scaffolding? Or did they build in anchorage points to allow workers to be suspended to do maintenance?

Sidebar: noted that USA soccer was rated internationally, but it was more hype than solid record. Beckham's bent PK was a ringer today, but the Portuguese goal no slouch. Best goal to me has been Germany's first goal yesterday: chested a cross & left-footed it in on a two-touch crossing shot to the far-side upper corner.

Will be in Indy for USGP race next weekend. Alonso (SP) won the Canadian GP today.

9:46 PM  
Blogger JTH said...

fpr- that was the argentine goal. and i agree: amazing. solid observation on trabeation + pigeon consumption. it's like bird farming.

and yes, most old stuff is visible shored up, either in ties, support stands, lots of glue, etc.

finally, i imagine cleaning the buildings wasn't too big a task, considering the tarry toxic pollutants wrecking them weren't burned into the atmosphere en masse until only recently (a couple hundred years). i'm sure sweeping + rain worked just fine. that's just a guess.

12:45 AM  

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