I hope you enjoyed my first post about my journey with my latest series of paintings inspired by the amazing Frida Kahlo.
As you know, I am now in Ferrara, Itay to work with my wonderful model-who I met in Dublin, Ireland. I am hoping, through this blog, to give the public some idea about just how much goes into producing a painting, or, in this case, a series of paintings.
So, today we got started on our poses. I was so lucky, Lucrezia (my model) and her boyfriend arrived by car to collect me from my hotel in the city and bring me out to her spacious apartment where we began to go through the images of Frida and the collection of colourful headdresses, scarfs, flowers and everything Frida that I could lay my hands on in Ireland before my arrival here.
I was given some amazing fabrics, a statue, braiding, and lace from a dear friend in Ireland to add to my own collection.
I then set upon sorting out the headdress etc. to match as closely as possible, to each photo or self portrait of Frida that I had thought best to take inspiration from for this collection.
Here's what I was doing before the plane to Ferrara.... costume making....
The making of a collar that fits around the whole face, I wonder would anyone recognise which painting of Frida I will be using as my inspiration here.......
More fabulous lace! Here are two blouses together to make one quite similar to the one Frida is wearing in another piece, as I said, I was SO lucky with my friend having such a great selection to choose from. The blouses getting aired ready for the trip to Ferrara.
For the piece I want these for, Frida wears a high lace collar, so I cut lace from the neck and shoulders of another blouse that I bought in a second hand shop, found some lace edging in my own sewing box, and set about making the neck piece, which you will see in another post over the next few days.
Making my own headdresses to as close as I can within the timeframe I have given myself...
Enjoying this, it's been so long since I did some sewing and I love it!
The colours of Frida, and my friend had loaned me this statue for one particular piece- fab!
At last we start unpacking the costumes in Lucrezia's apartment.
So which pose first?
A beautiful Sunday morning in Lucrezia's hometown of Migliarino, which is just about a half hour drive- or less-outside the city of Ferrara....so we decide to go and have a look at the local market for a scarf I had not sourced for one piece yet, and to get some food. This is getting so good.
Pasta! Has to be done!
Fabric everywhere...just what we wanted.
Lucrezia driving us to Migliarino..
My first time ever in the Italian countryside and I was so happy to be there.
An added bonus to be driven by a person who is local and knows the place so well.
Market day...what luck!
One of the beautiful buildings in the town. I loved the architecture in Italy. x
We were looking for green and also yellow to best match the dress and headdress on two different pieces. I had left a yellow scarf at home that matched but unfortunately did not bring it along.
But we did find this green scarf...we hated this particular shade of green but it had skulls all over it which is so Frida and Mexican looking.
As it turned out, the scarf looked fabulous on Lucrezia.
In Italy- MUST eat pasta! We had a fine lunch in Ristorante '800 in the town of Migliarino...if you are visiting I Recommend this place. And as they say, if the locals eat there, then it is the place to go.
Next we head back to the apartment and the fun begins...
Check out my next post and thanks for reading this.
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