Plein-aire
I took an amazing trip to Tuscany, and was introduced to the joys of plein-aire painting. At first, I tried to incorporate everything that I saw in the scene. This just didn’t work. So, rather than attempting to mimic my detailed, layered studio work, while on location, painting outside, I decided that I would try to capture the essence of the scene, while retaining my characteristic bolder brushwork. I would attempt to say more with less! I know that this collection is vastly different from my studio work, but I enjoy the challenge of distilling my work to the most important elements.
Tuscan Hillside
This piece was about the most important elements of the view… the contour of the landscape, the cypress trees and the collection of buildings on top of the hillside.
West Coast Water
After coming back from my Italy trip, I was asked to design a banner for a friend, and needed a simple image that wouldn’t detract from the text, and that would represent the island that we were on. So, evergreens and water…
Val D'Orcia Valley
In this piece, I wanted to capture the olive groves, greenery and the layered hills in my view into the Val D’Orcia.
Essence of Begonias
This was intended to be an exercise on abstraction- no petals, stamen, etc, but I couldn’t refrain from my favored bold, gestural mark-making!
No Bowl Val D'Orcia
The challenge, in this view from the Val D’Orcia, was to capture the “bowl” in the landscape… it’s not quite here, but the house on the hill, with the cypress trees in the yard, and the sense of aerial perspective are there!
The Val D'Orcia Bowl
This exaggeration of the contours of the landscape capture the hollow in the valley.
Cortona, Version 3
Oftentimes, when I paint on location, I fall into the habit of trying to capture everything.. and then I tend to lose sight of the most important parts of the scene. When I do that, I repaint, but not from the scene itself. I edit by painting off my painting, and ask myself, “ What is essential? What attracted me to the subject in the first place? “ Then, I repaint, and simplify! This painting is the third version of a view in Cortona. It’s painted from a painting, based on the original plein-aire piece!
Cortona, Version 2
This is the painting based on the original plein-aire painting done on location in Cortona. What attracted me to this view was the geometry of the buildings, and the soft colours.
The Eight Percent Door
While in Italy, we were challenged to paint one of the doors in the courtyard of La Fratta. The kicker was, only eight percent could reveal that it was a door. I chose this door, because the layers of paint peeling off it created a variety of soft, muted colours.
Walls of La Fratta
We stayed in this amazing, 16th Century working farm, when I was in Italy. On our last day, I just felt compelled to paint the essence of the old walls of the structure.. they were masonry, with peeling stucco, concrete, brick, and bits of paint.