Let me review my 2017. What results have I achieved during these 365 days of projects, paintings, lessons learned and lessons given, successes and failures … Which days will remain in my heart and which ones are to be forgotten?
The live portrait show
Among the hits of 2017, I would put the “Live Painting Show” first in my mind: the Menarini Awards and the FUA’s Christmas Party. Certainly original and innovative on a technical level, the performances held first at Salone dei Cinquecento of Palazzo Vecchio and second at Palazzo Budini-Gattai have highlighted the great powerful of digital painting that I have developed this year thanks to the collaboration with Wacom (one of the strong themes of my 2017). The technical enhance of my Wacom Cintiq graphic tablet represented a real milestone of my creative story with a great development of the techniques of portraiture and visualization, representing a winning equation: visual art = show. The Live Painting of Menarini – under the guidance and direction of Claudio Focardi of Ultraprime – and that one at FUA (Florence University of the Arts) – thanks to DIVA and Apicius organization – were the result and the consecration. Both events, amounted to me an authentic record, awaiting mention on the Guinness Award: 240 portraits painted in four hours. Virtually one per minute!
The downloads site
The Live Paintings inspired to me some good ideas. One of these, is the site of Downloads. Designed and built by me in a few weeks with WordPress,
(for the employees: I used the formidable Easy Digital Download plugin!) and inspired by a famous marketplace in English for freelancer “fiverr”, in the new Store I offer “Gig” as portraits on commission, illustrations and digital creations. The customer experience is immediate and the first feedback very encouraging. Also very useful for collaborations at a distance with agencies and studios, I would be happy to open the platform with other illustrators and artists who like me believe in sharing experiences, a few numbers? Artistic downloading is a phenomenon that is growing rapidly in the network. In fact, the most downloaded categories of 2017 – after the Apps – are all sorts of tutorials and resources; vector, pixels, images and footage. And for those who already distort the nose, you will soon know great artists close to this philosophy: David Hockney, a historical name of Pop-art, shows off on his site digital works created on the iPad and iPhone. If you would like to learn more or more information on this subject, please write to me, I will be happy to answer.
The watercolor experience
In 2017 I had a dream: the theme workshop. A project for fans of visual arts that combines history, art, thought and – why not? – Wellness. A nice “experience” on the steps of John Singer Sargent, the American artist, born in Italy, who lived and worked between Florence, Venice and Rome across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries producing a lot of quickly “snapshots” of Italian life. Celebrated in any fine art schools of figure and naturalist trend, in United States and Canada it is still a paradigm for hundreds of young “concept artists” whose famous backlighting technique still inspires the FX for Movie production and Game art. Everyone would love to paint as Singer Sargent! Through rediscovery of the same places of his masterpieces, I will let you live once that experience and I will teach you to see the beauties of Florence and of whole Italy through a great artist’s eyes. Workshop will start on March 24th, information and booking here: www.kissfromitaly.com. Book just now!
The importance of training, and a book.
It’s so difficult for me to remember all my 2017 as trainer. Teaching, for an artist, is an extraordinary opportunity to improve himself. Perhaps this is the reason I have so increased the hours dedicated to teaching by a 30% compared to the previous year. Sketching, painting, illustration, traditional watercolor and – from this year – also digital techniques with the relaunched “Painter2018”, and then lessons of artistic anatomy. Here comes the new of the year. For the Nemo Academy, with a little help of my friend Luca Chiarotti, I produced a book, “The Design of the Human Body for Artists”, my first manual of anatomical design. In title I say “design” because I will help you to draw the lines of the human body just watching its functions and its dynamics. Published by “La Città Delle Nuvole” (www.lacittadellenuvole.com) 110 pages in color, full illustrated, presented at Lucca Comics 2017, “Design of the human body” has for sure its cover price, but the real income to me will be to enter in the studio of many skilled young comic artists, illustrator and concept artists trained by me year by year.
See you soon!
