Torcello Bridge

I started this painting several years ago.  I'm taking an oil painting class for just 6 weeks so I thought I would take this in to the class to finish it. After dusting off the cobwebs, I toned down the colors and finished painting the foreground.  It looks a lot better than it did but I think I will re-try this one in watercolor.  Oils are still a challenge for me.  The shadows look much darker in this photo than they really are in the painting but the rest of the colors/values look pretty true.

I've always loved the photo from which this was painted.  It was taken in Torcello, Italy which is one of the islands by Venice, near Burano and Murano islands.   Each of those three islands are completely different and each has a special charm.  Torcello is a very quiet, calm island with very few tourists, which was a nice change from the rest of our vacation.  This funny little boat really did have that unusual shape.  Those Italians are very creative.  : )

Torcello Bridge
Image Size 16" x 20"
Oil

All Alone

I really love the photo that I used as a reference for this painting.  I've used it before and will keep using it until I get just the right feeling.  I've painted it in oil twice.  The two paintings look very different and neither one resembles the photo but that's okay.  Each time I paint it, I'm in a different frame of mind and I think it's pretty cool that I can use the same photo over and over with totally different results.  In the photo, the day is overcast and the colors are muted.

All Alone
Image Size 12" x 6"
Oil

Here is the first one I painted from the photo:

I used a lot of artistic license with this one.  The latest painting is much closer to the actual photo.  For the painting above, I just plucked the tree out of the photo and added the vineyard and put it on a hill and I made it a sunny, cloudless day.  The tree doesn't even really look like the one in the photo.  I guess the tree was just an inspiration and I didn't really use the photo very much but it was a jumping off point.

Lone Tree
Image Size 6" x 6"
Oil

Italian Stream

I've been playing with wax again.  This is an encaustic of a photo I took in Italy.  I love how the wax flowed and the painting transformed as I fused the layers together.

I think I will try painting flowers next with this medium.  So much fun.....

Italian Stream
Image Size 6" x 6"
Encaustic

After The Rain

The photo from which this was painted was taken last summer in Burano, which is one of the islands around Venice, Italy.   My husband and I had been there about 10 years ago but it was cloudy then and I didn't get any pictures with sun and shadows so I was very excited to be able to go there again, this time with our kids, so that they could see Venice with its surrounding islands and so that I could get some better pictures.  Of course this time it was raining!  We took the ferry and went to Murano first (an island where glass blowing is common) and just as the ferry pulled up to Burano the sun came out!  Lucky me!

I was happy to see colorful umbrellas throughout the city hanging on the shutters to dry.  It added charm to an already charming place.  So it turns out that the rain was a good thing.  We almost waited until the next day to go because of the rain but it's a good thing we didn't or we wouldn't have seen Burano at all.  That day all of the people that worked in transportation were on strike.  No ferrys, no gondolas, no trash pick up either so I guess it wasn't only the transportation people on strike.

Burano is known for its beautiful lace.  I'm not much of a lace person but it's always interesting to see hand crafted items.  In Burano the buildings are all brightly painted.  The color of this building was turquoise but I changed it because I felt that bright color would take the focus away from the umbrellas - artistic license at work.

After the Rain
Image Size 22" x 22"
Watercolor

Breaking Through The Clouds

This was painted from a photo I took while traveling on a bus between Liverno and Lucca in Tuscany.  The sky was so beautiful and the scene was so tranquil that I had to try to capture the feeling.  I really love the Tuscan countryside and you'll probably see many more scenes from this area in the future.

Breaking Through The Clouds
Image Size 6" x 6"
Oil

Orvieto

I took the photo for this painting in 2005 in Orvieto, Italy.  It's such a charming town and I love this scene.  In fact, I painted it before in a landscape format twice as large.  For this painting,  I wanted to use the portrait format to emphasize the height of the building in the foreground.  Also, this one is painted more loosely and colorfully.  I never took a picture of the original painting and although it is hanging in our home, I'm too lazy to try to take a picture of it through the glass.  They never seem to come out well without a lot of reflections anyway so you will just have to imagine what it looks like.  : )

Orvieto

Image Size 22" x 15"

Watercolor

Burano, Italy - Silk Painting

We went to Venice, Italy a few years ago and Burano is an island off of the coast there. I was amazed that it was so different from Venice. The buildings are all painted bright colors there and not a gondola in sight. I thought that silk dyes on silk would be a good medium to try for this picture. I may also do it in oil later.

Burano, Italy
Image size 20" x 16"
Silk dyes on silk
Framed
$400.00

Florence Flowers

This is painted from a picture I took several years ago in Florence, Italy. I love how they have little pots of flowers in so many of their windows. It was fun to try to get the effect of the old chipping wall with the silk dyes.

Florence Flowers
Image size 19.5 x 15.5"
Silk dyes on silk
Framed
$375.00

Tuscan Landscape

This isn't a typical weekly painting since it took over a month to paint but I wanted to post it for this week's painting since I just got it hung. It is 23 canvases painted to hang together in an abstract collage. It was fun to paint but also a challenge because I used acrylics (which I haven't used since high school) so they would dry quickly and I could get it to Mexico. The original reason I used a series of small canvases was because it was a good way to get a large painting to Mexico on the plane. It fit neatly into our luggage. The largest canvas is 10" x 20" but the overall painting is about 4' x 8'.

Tuscan Landscape
4' x 8'
Acrylic

Tuscan Hillside - Silk Painting

For some reason this silk painting didn't steam correctly and the dyes didn't set. I'll try again tomorrow but wanted to post this on time. I'll re-take the picture when it is steamed and I can stretch it.

Italian Awning

Here is a pastel just to do something a little different. I started it about a year ago and decided to finish it this week. I love the looser, gestural look that pastels can give.

Italian Awning
13" x 8"
Pastels
Framed