Painting outdoors

The wonderful thing about the Tuscan landscape is the patterning of the hillsides, tree and plant shapes and natural forms. A gift for an artist. One can see the shapes to paint even in the dark.


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Painting outdoors!

Great in Castagneto Carducci at the castle ! Wonder how I'll get on at home!! It's raining there again.
The light here is beautiful. Could stay and paint here forever! I am really loving painting in the early evening when kids in bed!

Am in danger of overpainting cos I have the time. Must pull back.


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The Tuscan Landscape!

It's breathtaking! Soooo glad that I brought the paints and brushes with me as well as the sketchbook!
There is an amazingly huge patio here that is very high up in the landscape. And there are wild boar in the garden at evening time below the patio!
Decided to paint direct as I the owner will lend me her easel! She paints gigantic mythical creatures in a semi classical but almost Angela Carter manner. They are all over the walls.
I can leave the easel out all night !! And the evening scenes are magical!


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2. Turner, Monet & Twomby

Am still stunned. To see the brushstrokes was achingly beautiful and uplifting. The Twomby series entitled Hero & Leander depicts the sea swallowing up Leander.
Each huge painting (4 in the series) moves from blackness through greens to White then a sparse but powerful leaving message in text.
But there is an astonishing sense of depth and space In each painting. The second in the series speaks of that wild yet satiated well of the sea having taken of Leander. Beautiful rhythms of whites and greens heralds with long long strokes of maybe a brush on a pole from a distance ( the how?)



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A Matisse in the real!

Walking away from the exhibition, I started browsing other galleries in Tate L. In the current exhibition curated by Marianne Faithful, I spotted a favourite , the Boty painting of Monroe at the pivotal moment as the art world shifted. I just love this work. I soaked up the pleasure of seeing this astute piece again then continued.
To my astonishment, there was a small but exquisite painting by Matisse of a Nude. Early work painted in a studio dedicated to life work in Paris. It is the most interesting and perfect Life painting ! One can see the influences on later painters without a doubt. Huge range of tones intricately arranged like a symphony. What a treat!


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1. The Turner Monet & Twomby exhibition at Tate Liverpool

Visited on Fri 18th Aug 2012. This I found to be a beautiful exhibition, with resonances through time, the artists' vision and techniques that revealed a shared interrogation of with light in particular.
I'm simply going to record my emotional response to these paintings because in some moments I was elated and in others, I was taken aback or intrigued.
The paintings of Monet I thought I knew well. Not so. Clearly just the illustrations! The risk taking use of colour such as Alzarine crimson with cad yellow and several green tones was startling. What was amazing was the way that these same colours resonated through the Twomby paintings AND harked back to Turner.
And I though the work of Turner was mainly browns, yellows, greens and black. But in the real, and compared to Monets, one finds oneself checking out these same colours!

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Sketching on coastline in Pembrokeshire

Magical sometimes a tad hard to draw on a narrow rocky pathway above harbour where lots of folk walk. Using a 2b pencil to do simple effective lines rather than tonal to capture the rocky sweeps of the coast.


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Graham Sutherland Prints

In a tiny art gallery in Porthgain Pembrokeshire, there are some stunning Sutherland prints, some of which he did as illustrations for a prestigious book on Apollinaire the French poet. They are exquisitely imaginative, and so brave in colour ! That a treat to see them.


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