Fleeting Light

Here’s another Italian scene painted on site near the Arno river in Florence. The above 9x12 painting “Under the Arch” was completed in a little over an hour on the second day that I arrived. I wanted to get the juices flowing after the long flight before I began my week of teaching, so I managed to finish this one just before the bus picked us up for our workshop.

I had every intention of doing a painting of bridges and water on the Arno, but when I didn’t find something inspiring, I spotted this view with the tiny sliver of light piercing the shadowed wall. The street and mini archway just spoke of Florence and since time was of the essence, I set up and got busy. To start, my most important element was to capture the shadow value of the building on the right. After a quick sketch of the basic forms, I began concentrating on mixing that tricky green/gold color. Of course, the minute I put the first few strokes down, sunlight started flooding the scene and my wonderful light sliver was lost instantly. I still wanted to continue and thought I’d just remember what it looked like and pressed on. I painted in all of the right side shadow tones and window suggestions, then moved to the archway. In actuality, it was the same color as the building on the right, but I changed the shade slightly, so it wouldn’t appear flat. Next I brushed on the red tones of the left side building, and again, this was much lighter due to the reflected light. When I experimented with establishing the correct tone, it drew too much attention to an unimportant area, so I dropped the value down to the same level as the other shadows and that created a better harmony. I moved to the distant building next, and pushed it’s value lighter to achieve a bit more distance in the scene. I also gave it a pink hue to differentiate it from the other structures. Since the building was quite tall in reality, I cropped it down to allow for that small rectangle of sky which I felt created a better design. The street was painted in after that and people were added to give it life. I kept them minimized and in shadow so they would not take away from the lit areas which were my focus. Lastly, I painted in all the sunlit areas. The value was there for me, but I had to work from memory of the actual light shape, since the whole right-hand building was now in full light. With some last minute flourishes here and there, my final paint stroke was the sliver of yellow light coming down in the center. Time was now up and I threw my gear together and was off to the bus.

I knew that the painting was missing something, since so much of the light shapes were created from memory but couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t until I returned home and saw my photo of the scene that I figured out what was wrong. I had painted the side of the building to the right of the archway roof completely in shadow, when in reality there was tons of reflected light bouncing off the red roof. I corrected my mistake, adding in the rectangle of light above the thin sliver and suddenly it all came together.

Painting en plein air always has it’s advantages, but a little photo help here and there never hurts! Enjoy.

Chianti Hills

Back in Italy, and I can’t believe it’s been a year since my last visit. Real espresso, fresh herbs, beautiful landscape, people, pasta and of course, plenty of vino ... what’s not to love! We’ve had great weather too, their first warm spell of the year, so I’m told. The only downside is the lack of poppies, with no fields of red to be found in our area. But there is still plenty to paint!

I thought I’d share the scene above. This 9x12, “Above Vagliagli” is an aerial view from the small town close to where we’re staying. (Vagliagli -- valley of the wild garlic -- pronounced val-yal-yee). I loved the way the shapes grouped together nicely and thought I’d be up for the challenge of a complex scene.

I started by rouging in where the town would be positioned on the canvas, beginning only with the basic rectangle shapes of the buildings. I painted in all the shadow sides first of the main structures that I wanted to emphasize, then added the sunlit fronts. Next I put in some roof shapes on top of those and added some of the trees separating the buildings. After that, all of the other structures are just suggestions of roofs, shadowed sides and lighted fronts, using areas in and around the trees. I next added the shadows under the roof eaves and threw in a couple of windows on the main buildings. I added windows only to the ones I wanted the viewer focus on. In the last stage of painting the town, I worked back and forth between the trees and structures, trying to get the feel of a busy scene without overstating my main focus.

Lastly, the foreground and far hills were kept simple to support the town.

We’re off to Siena tomorrow and since it’s after midnight, I’ll end this post here! Ciao.

Italian Reds

Since I loved painting in Italy so much and thought the subject matter was intriguing, I thought I’d do something big for the Festival of Arts this year in Laguna Beach, CA. Above is my main show piece “Italian Reds,” a 48” x 36” studio version of my original plein air work posted before.

This painting was completed over three days in mid June using my photo references in addition to the on-site work. I decided to handle the approach similarly to the way I painted it before, by painting the cypress, distant trees and hills first. I broke out the big brushes for this one to achieve the fresh, painterly feel I felt I conveyed in the original 12 x 9. Once I had the depth, I proceeded to the poppy fields working back to front. I kept the distant flowers as a mass and balanced the reds and green in a harmonious fashion to read as a segue from the foreground to background. Next was the main focus area. I wanted a feeling of power and punch without describing every flower, so I loosely painted in general areas of red where the groupings were to be featured. I then went back into the green stem areas and cut into the reds trying to develop interesting shapes as I proceeded. I added the darker shadows to the underside of the flowers next to complete the forms. The poppies at the very bottom of the canvas were kept very simple and in shadow to support what’s above them and not to distract. Next was developing the focal flowers further by punching in some darks, and adding more variety and nuances to the colors. I introduced a secondary eye-movement by adding in the violet flowers. Last was the sparkle of highlights in yellow and other bright dashes to catch your eye.

This piece came together surprisingly smooth, but I think since I had a successful study to begin with, it made the large work fall into place readily. It was fun to have a piece with so much bright color, plus it contrasted nicely with the deep atmosphere. Now I can sit back and breath easy it with a glass of wine in hand. And as most Italians will tell you in regards to their drink preferences, “the best whites are red.” Enjoy!

Seeing Red

Friday, we happened across an amazing field of poppies that put the prior one to shame. It was as if the ground opened up and oozed lava over the entire area. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to capture this onto canvas -- a nice treat for our last day of painting.

I normally don’t sit when I paint, but in this scene the best view was when you crouched down and immersed yourself in the crimson pool. I wanted to show the layers of depth, not just in the field, but also in the distant hills. With so many flowers, I felt my best approach would be to invent a pleasing pattern inspired by the red. I started this painting by completing all of the far trees, hills and cypress first. Then I proceeded top to bottom with the poppies, choosing a grayish red for the back and intensifying as I moved forward in space. I varied the colors from red to orange to purple to give it a nice variety. Then, as that became more of a foundational color, I used bits of white and yellow to move your eye around, fading it as it recedes. To show the far village in the distance, I re-introduced a reddish tint to give a hint of warmth in the upper part of the painting.

Note: Using your drying box as a stool is not advisable if you enjoy circulation in your legs. Ciao.