Varenna Shoreline W.I.P.

I feel a bit like Punxsutawney Phil, poking my head out into the public for a brief moment, only to run back into obscurity and wait out the rest of winter. It's not really fair to blame a pudgy little rodent for my absence and for all of the crazy snow days we've been dealt this winter. But given he's fictional and defenseless and  I've no one else to point a finger at, Phil it is. Nevertheless, I've started a new painting based on the small study I posted in my last entry. This is the tonal lay-in on a 24x36" canvas. Some of the lighter  areas got a little too "tonal" as I made adjustments to the drawing, (most notably the boats) but as I have my study and photos, I will make those corrections when I get into color.

Landscape painting Varenna Italy in progress by Jennifer Young

 There are only slight variations in design at this point-- just a minor reshaping of the distant hills to slow the speed of the downward slope. I also simplified and "skooched" back (sorry for the technical lingo) one building that sat directly behind the villa sitting closest to center to minimize the confusion of these overlapping forms and hopefully  create a more elegant design.

I 'm generally happy with the color plan I used in the study though, so at this point my plan is to follow its lead as I start my next steps of diving into color.

Studies

I'm baaaack. And I'm kicking off my return to blogging with a new Varenna study. I actually hesitate to call this a study, given the amount of time it took. I guess a month away from painting has left me feeling a litle rusty and slow! In any case, this painting will serve as a preliminary study for a larger piece.

Varenna Study Oil on canvas, 6"x9" © Jennifer Young

We have had rounds of winter sickness followed by school closings due to snow, so with my foray back into painting being thwarted quite a bit, I had the thought to develop a number of small scale studies of some larger painting ideas that  I've been wanting to tackle. I'll be painting some of these to scale up to my larger sizes. For example this 6x9" piece will scale up to 24x36".

I've painted various views of this harbor a few times now, which you can see here,  here, and here. I guess you can tell I am enamored with this particular view of this lovely Italian lake town! This composition emphasizes the strong horizontal of the walled town jutting out onto the lake, contrasted by the verticals of the buildings and tall cypresses.

While I almost always sketch out my composition on paper before I tackle a canvas, I usually leave the painted study for when I am out in the field painting from life. In fact, I have painted lots of studies and lots of larger scale studio pieces and quite a bit in between. Not all small paintings warrant a big statement, but I haven't been all that great about developing my viable studies into larger, more fleshed out studio concepts.  My schedule has been so sporadic for such a long time now, and with not much chance of an end in sight, I really feel like I need to have a more methodical  approach to my work habits. I am hoping that by tightening up my studio practices a bit, I might find more equilibrium when I do get a chance to enter the studio, and I will waste less time and feel less at a loss about what I am going to tackle next.

Well, nothing informs like experience, and since these small ones can presumably be completed in a fraction of the time, (ahem!) I thought it was worthwhile to have a go at a few of them, done, specifically with larger paintings in mind. I will also mine some of my other small works, in particular the plein air pieces I've done, as I think a number of them have potential for further development. I have worked from a number of them here and there, but I think there is more potential (especially in my James River series) and it could be something fun to do during these cold winter months when I'm not getting outside.

Finally complete- Tuscan Hay painting

I'm taking a break from chopping my vegetables to finally wrap up the latest Tuscany painting I left flapping in the breeze on New Year's Day. After I had my composition established and my canvas covered, it was time to go back in to further develop the background, middle ground, and foreground. It sounds very systematic, but this was really more of a back and forth dance because the value, scale, edges, etc. all have to relate and are interdependent with the other elements in the painting. For instance, in the image below, I thought I had the background fairly finalized...until I took a step back and decided the buildings were too large and too prominent in relation to my foreground house. As I moved forward to the center of interest it became apparent that these two areas of the painting were battling for attention. So I went back and softened the distant village and reduced the size and contrast of the buildings a bit more, and further softened their edges.

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer E Young

Here's the final:

"Tuscan Hay" Oil on Linen, 20x24" ©Jennifer E Young

Progress on the Tuscan Hay painting

As is typical of my working method, I establish my sky and clouds first on my newly sketched canvas. This helps me to key the rest of my light values in the painting. At this point I alsolay in a first pass on the distant mountain.

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer E. Young

Next come the hill town and terraced hillside of the background. At this point I am still establishing the compositional elements so there is not much color or value variation. I will go back into these areas again, but I really want to develop the entire canvas to the same level before it sets up too much, as I'm not sure when my next painting session will be.

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer E. Young

Now for the middle distance, where my area of interest (the house) resides. I decided to lower the cypress to the right of the house, as I felt there needed to be some height/shape variation in the trees flanking the house.  I'll have to go back into that sky area again where I made this change to clean it up a little more. Good thing I still have plenty of that sky color on my palette! Again, I don't have much in the way of highlights yet...just a few value shifts to give certain objects a little form.

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer E. Young

Now I'm ready to start laying in the foreground hill and those groovy hay tracks.

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer E. Young

That was fun! Now I have the whole canvas covered more or less to the same level of finish. There's a good deal more to do, but this feels like a pretty good start for around 4 hours of work.

Tuscan Hay

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! Ours was filled with laughter and fun, (which is an easy achievement when there is a 3  1/2-year-old in the house). We are still in the middle of winter break, but fortunately I can still carve out a few more painting hours between now and the dawn of a new year. I've been playing around with a composition of the Tuscan landscape of a hillside decorated with the pattern of freshly gathered hay. The meandering pattern of those undulating lines of hay shaped by the rolling hills are what first inspired me to start sketching, first in my notebook, and then more purposefully on my  20x24" canvas:

My plan is actually to create those lines carved out by the harvested hay a lot more subtly, but they are pretty linear right now because I just want to establish their pattern. In the distance is a terraced hillside punctuated by cypresses, as well as  old stone walls and towers, and cypresses so typical of southern Tuscany.