Chianti Hills

Well, I’m finally abroad painting the Italian countryside. The Tuscan landscape is quite beautiful this time of year with nice warm weather and interesting skies but it’s very green. The workshop I will be teaching starts soon, but I’ve been working on a commissioned vineyard scene this past week. Looking forward to painting some town scenes after five solid days of vine rows. Plus, I’ve had to fill all my down-time with double espressos, prosciutto and Sangiovese, so its been a tough week.

Here is one of the views I found with these amazing flowering bushes that are a nice break from all the verde. Another feature I love are these tall Italian Cypress trees that are conveniently everywhere to break the horizontal horticulture. They’re a great simple shape, but still have subtle color shifts that keep them interesting. In this composition, I was trying to keep your eye bouncing from the yellow flowers on the left to the big cypress to the villa in the distance. I popped in more Cypress as needed to break lines and hold you in. Nothing like an game of visual pinball as your eye caroms back and forth on all the juxtaposed diagonals. Ahh the 70’s! Ciao.