Sunflowers!

I've needed some cheering up lately, so yesterday I started a new painting of Tuscan sunflowers. It's nearly impossible to frown while beholding a sea of sunflowers, right?

Feeling better already :-)

Pescallo cafe complete

We have had a bout of sickness at our house (first me, then my daughter) but I finally had a chance to get back to my Pescallo painting over the holiday weekend. Let's wrap this up! Picking up from my last installment, I am ready to paint in the flowers. Bougainvillea spills over the arbor with mixtures of alizarin crimson, permanent rose and a touch of cadmium red to warm things up. Normally I would block those colors in sooner but I was still trying to decide about the placement of that arbor structure and reds are such high staining colors that I didn't want to put them in until I had the composition pretty well established. Now I guess I am committed! ;)

Geraniums in shades of red fill out the planters using the same colors as the bougainvillea (but in much different ratios).  I also flesh out the columns on the terrace and I am nearly done with the pier.

Now it's time to move down to finish the foreground water and reflections. There is a lot of movement in this water, and with much of this water in semi-shadow, reflections are subtle and broken by waves rather than the strong, mirror-like reflections seen in still water. For the darkest shades I mix Ultramarine and Gold Ochre, warmed or cooled by touches of Cadmium Orange or Sevres blue as the situation allows. Water highlights are deeper shades of the sky color.

My finale is to include the rest of my vertical lines- the mast on the boat and the railing along the pier. These verticals act as a strong counter-balance to the horizontals of the mountains, boat and pier. I think the railing also serves to further push the background more firmly in the distance.

"Alfresco in Pescallo" Oil on Linen, 24x30" Click here for more info!

This piece was a challenge to me, largely because of all of the interruptions I had, which caused the painting to set up quite a bit more in between sessions. I much prefer painting wet-into-wet, to avoid the extra work of opening the painting back up and scraping the dry paint down off of my palette. But sometimes it just can't be helped. In any event, I hope you like the final piece!

No babysitting this week, so there will be lots of trips to playgrounds and possibly the zoo, and I likely won't have much in the way of new work to post until after my daughter is back in preschool on the 9th.

Moving forward

Before I could really tackle the foreground on my Pescallo painting-in-progress, I needed to establish the background water. It shimmers with a pale sparkling light in the distance, the color becoming deeper and more varied in contrast as it moves in waves toward the viewer.

Lest I got too caught up in the romance of Italy or the gentle waves of Lake Como, my husband brings me back to reality with a screeching halt and a critique of my painting. His opinion is to flip the direction of the boat so that it leads into the painting rather than out. I have to agree with him here, so being the always obedient wife (ha ha) I do as I'm told.

Next, I really need to address what is happening on the pier so that I can paint the reflections in the foreground water. I paint the tires that hang along the pier and serve as a rustic contrast to the elegant beauty of the backdrop. This epitomizes Pescallo to me; it is rustic but beautiful, quaint but elegant, sleepy but exciting, all at the same time. The tires are in higher contrast on the sunny side and in low contrast in the shadows.

Black is not black and white is never white. By this I mean that I don't use a tube black to paint black-colored objects, or a straight out of the tube white for most white-colored objects. This would create very flat, dead color. Instead, I mix my "blacks" with my darkest translucent colors on my palette, ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson, and just the tiniest bit of cad. orange or yellow to neutralize some of that purple undertone.

Flowers and flowering vines grow out of every crack and cranny around these parts, and I paint those in delicately so as not to overpower. The showy flowers will be the geraniums and bougainvillea to come.

School is back in session, which means that our babysitter has become a lot less available now that she's returned to college classes. It also means I will have less time to paint over the next two weeks until my daughter returns to preschool. I didn't get the time to paint outside last week, but my goal is to finish this studio piece with one more session tomorrow, so that I can still fit in a plein air session by week's end. I'm close...wish me luck!

Pescallo cafe demo updated

Ever tried painting on four hours of sleep? It ain't pretty! In fact, doing anything on "sleep fumes" (as I call it) is a bit like running through wet cement. That's how it's been lately for me as my insomnia issue has again reared its ugly head. And it's why I typically have avoided doing a full-fledged painting demonstration recently. Nevertheless, I have progressed a bit with the Pescallo painting, and I'll continue to share my process for it despite the break in continuity. When I last left off, I had a good deal of the background mapped out. Now I am tackling the foreground.

Even though I felt as if I had a pretty good compositional plan going in, I continue to tweak elements of the composition as I go along. For instance, I decided to extend the tip of the closest mountain off further to the right, so that it wasn't in danger of butting up against the foreground verticals. I also wondered if the boat was too large in the original drawing for where I had placed it in the picture plane. So I've experimented with reducing it slightly below.

Mainly though I've been working out the shadows and highlights of the foreground café and the pier. I need to get those pier elements in place before I can address the foreground water and any reflections down there.

I hope I can wrap this up in another session or two, depending on how much time I can carve out to do it. I'll continue to post my updates and painting notes as I go. Thanks for tuning in!

Pescallo cafe painting demo (cont'd)

Here's a little more progress on the Pescallo painting I started in my last post.  I'm trying to write this as a demo of sorts, which means that with my  time constraints it is taking longer for me to post than I'd like. But noting ventured nothing gained, and I'm now ready to talk about some color! My palette for this painting is as follows: titanium white cadmium yellow light cadmium orange cadmium red alizarin crimson ultramarine blue sevres blue (Rembrandt- it's like a cerulean but more intense) burnt sienna gold ochre

This is a bit more expanded than the single primary I have experimented with a lot in the past, but with limited time in the studio now, it is helpful to have a few more "convenience" colors in my arsenal. With the tonal drawing laid to canvas as my guide, I begin by blocking in my color, starting with the sky and mountains. I start with very general shapes at first and then work to refine them as I move along. For the sky I am using combinations of sevres and ultramarine and white, and for the clouds, touches of cadmium orange and red, plus white. The mountains are basically varying degrees of cadmium orange and ultramarine blue.

Since so much of the background peeks through what I will have going on in the fore, I decide to work out the background first, fleshing out the highlights of the mountains. The greens of the mountains are very grayed down- just the slightest amount of cad yellow light is used, in combination with the blues. I also add a little alizarin crimson to neutralize it further.

I decide to soften the sky a bit to make the background stay back and be less busy. Then I start to lay in a first pass at the water. I use a slightly darker variation of the blues from the sky for the distant water, using less white as I move forward. I also add in some cadmium orange to the blues as the water edges closer to the pier and foreground. This won't be the final word on the water, but I have gotten rid of that white canvas and have enough of the background tones to start laying in the foreground. Next I will begin work on establishing the shadows and highlights of the pier.

Quite a lot still to go, but things are starting to take shape. But as they say, the devil's in the details.

Pescallo Cafe (in progress)

Call us crazy, but we are seriously entertaining the idea of returning to Italy next year-- with a toddler along for the ride. I am not really certain where we will go or how this will work with me painting, us touring, and one of us being only 3 1/2, but the fact that we are seriously talking about it seems fairly miraculous in and of itself. Every time I go through my photos and sketches of past travels, I end up wanting to return to this region or that region, and I am no closer to settling on a destination than when we started talking about this trip last winter. And then there are the places we haven't even gotten to yet. Each part of Italy seems to have its own alluring qualities, unique to themselves but quintessentially Italian.

Lake Como remains near the top of my list (so far) in terms of sheer beauty and aesthetic pleasure. It's not heavily endowed with art history or artifacts, (compared to, say, Rome, Florence, or Venice) but what it lacks in museums it makes up for in natural beauty and storybook enchantment.

This is a quick sketch of a composition I have been playing around with for a little while. It is of a little cafe set upon a pier in Pescallo. Not a great photo, but hopefully you get the general idea.

This was drawn to scale on my sketchpad so that when I "scale up" that there will not be a great distortion when I put it to canvas. There will still be some adjustments along the way, but by remaining in the same format, there shouldn't be any major surprises.

Here is the line composition drawn out in oil (burnt sienna) on canvas. I do some toning here to work out a value pattern, but it's not a 100% tonal drawing-- just enough to cement my concept in my mind and get me excited about the piece.

Stay tuned for more to come soon as the painting progresses.

Sant' Antimo (Tuscany) painting complete

It took longer than I would have wanted to finalize my latest landscape painting of Tuscany, but I am really pleased with the final. Picking up from my prior post about this painting, here are a couple of additional progress shots: Continuing work to further articulate the background landscape:

...and here I begin to work on the Abbey:

Here, at last, is the final!

"Path to Sant' Antimo" Oil on Linen, 24x30" Click here for more info!

Sant' Antimo Abbey is a beautiful Romanesque (formerly Benedictine) monastery dating back to the 1100's. It is situated in the stunning landscape of the Montalcino commune, and rests about 10 km from the town of Montalcino, (home of the gorgeous Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello wines).

In springtime the landscape of Montalcino and surrounds are strewn with poppies and other wildflowers, and the hillsides are often touched with the soft yellows and greens of golden broom.

I have a lot of reference photos of this abbey from my visit there several years ago. But I particularly like this view, which shows the focal point as a hint of the abbey in its lovely setting, but doesn't scream "portrait of a building". I also enjoy the point of view, which puts the viewer firmly on the pathway beneath the tall cypress trees, and nearly eye level with the abbey, adding to the sense of "being there".

Sant' Antimo painting W.I.P. (cont'd)

I thought I would share a progress shot of the painting of the Montalcino valley (Tuscany) I've been working on. I have been under the weather, which delayed my progress for a few days. But now I think I'm getting back on track.

I now have the whole canvas more or less blocked in. I decided to remove the tree foliage that I'd indicated  in front of the abbey because I felt it hindered rather than added interest. I had to refer to a few other photos I had taken from different angles to figure out what is behind there, but I think the change opens it up a bit and things make more sense overall. I hope soon to be able to share the final piece....I'm getting closer!

Sant' Antimo painting progress

I thought I'd share a few quick shots of the Sant' Antimo Tuscan landscape I've been working on. The first color I lay in is the sky and clouds and distant mountains. The clouds will be the lightest value in the painting, so I want to "key" that in at the start.

Next come the darkest values- the majestic cypress trees so prevalent in Tuscany. At this point I also establish a rough lay in of the shadows of the abbey and cypresses:

Once that's done I set about fleshing out the rest of the painting. No highlights on these areas yet. But I am establishing some of the wonderful patterns in the terraced hillside and distant landscape.

Sant' Antimo on the Easel

We are back from the beach now. It was great but high winds thwarted any further attempts at plein air painting there for the remainder of the week. Anear-constant rain has kept me indoors so far this week as well, so I have started a new Tuscan studio painting to console myself ;) .

This is to be a new 24x30" canvas of the Montalcino commune in southern Tuscany, at the site of the Sant' Antimo Abbey.

Happy July 4th, everyone!

Tuscan Sun Wines launch this week in Italy!

I have gotten a number of inquiries about the wine labels I was commissioned to paint for Frances Mayes' Tuscan Sun Wines,  and when the wines would be available for purchase. Well my sources (namely Twitter) tell me that the first big launch will be in Cortona Italy this week on July 4th. If you want to follow the action as it unfolds, check out Tuscan Sun Wines on Twitter . It is exciting for me to watch, if even from afar, and to see the art finally realized on the wine bottles for which they were intended.

Source: Uploaded by user via Chef Robin on Pinterest

It will be even more exciting to see (and taste) the wines in person; but we here in the U.S. will have to wait for that. The U.S. launch is slated for some time in the fall.

Touring Venice

There are some times when my habit of waking at 5:30 a.m. (on the dot, and usually no matter what!) comes in pretty handy. With family visiting these last 10 days, early mornings have allowed me a few hours each day to complete this new Venice piece:

"Touring Venice" Oil on linen, 24x20"

This painting ( the bones of which you can see here) is the same size and format as the other recent Venice painting I posted a couple of weeks ago. They are meant to serve as companions to each other, though I think either would work just as well on its own.

In all the times I have been to Venice, I have still never taken a gondola ride. I wonder if it's possible to paint en plein air while aboard a gondola? A girl can dream...

More Venice, on the easel

I have a new Venice painting in the works this week. Here is the composition sketched in with thinned down burnt sienna. I have a lot of family visiting right now so any painting on this will need to happen in the wee hours of the morning this week before people start stirring. I doubt I will be able to do much blogging about its progress given my time constraints, but you never know. It's another 24"x20", to (hopefully) serve as a companion to the other Venice piece just completed.

Under the Bridge

Well, instead of blogging I have been tearing my hair out trying to figure out why my blog's RSS feed has not been updating. As a result, I did not get to do any progress blogging on this painting. But here it is, a new Venice painting that I managed to complete in between the hours of frustration:

"Under the Bridge, Venice" 24x20", Oil on Linen

I was going through my archives of former paintings and found a little painting I had done a while back of a single boat beneath a lovely footbridge. I thought it might be nice to expand on that idea on a 24x20" canvas. I really enjoyed creating this new piece. While the boat is still featured, I was able to add a little more context and show more of the background. I really thought I would hate painting those rails, but once I figured out the design and started painting in the highlights, I rather had a good time.

As for my feed, we are still trying to figure out the best solution (though it will definitely not be feedburner!) If you are an email subscriber and received this post in your email box, then I've made progress, at least. If not, there's probably a bit more hair-pulling in my future.

Feed problems? RSS readers take note!

It  appears that my last post on my recent wine label commission isn't appearing in my RSS feed, and thus, didn't get disseminated to my email subscribers either. As I am really excited to share this project, and I'd like to get to the bottom of this problem I am having with my blog feed, I hope you will forgive me if I send out this test post. I'm trying to see if there was just some sort of formatting issue with the last post or if indeed it is true that Google is no longer supporting Feedburner (which is where my blog feed gets redirected and disseminated.) Either way, I think the writing is on the wall and it is time to find a new solution to manage my blog subscriptions.

So change is in the air. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do this, but my plan is to leave Feedburner altogether and just start using my original feed. If you currently subscribe to my blog using RSS, please change your feed subscription to link directly to my original feed:

http://www.jenniferyoung.com/blog/feed

If you subscribe to my blog by email, there should be nothing you need to do at present with your subscription (so long as I do this right!) But if there is any change, I will be sure to notify you in advance. I don't have an enormous subscriber list, but I will do what I can to keep every one of you!

In the meantime, if you would like to see the Tuscany paintings I did for Frances Mayes' Tuscan Sun Wines,  follow this link!

Commissioned paintings for Frances Mayes' Tuscan Sun Wines

Speaking of commissions, I thought I would share a few details of what for me was a rather exciting (and consuming) commission this past winter:

Tuscan Sun Wines, LLC of Denver, Colorado, commissioned me to create seven paintings of the Italian countryside for their exclusive use on a new line of wine labels for writer Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun.

 

Each of the seven oil paintings portrays a theme that is central to life in Cortona, Tuscany and “Bramasole,” Mayes villa made famous by Under the Tuscan Sun. Listed here are pictures of my favorite pieces completed for this project. If you follow this link it will take you to the wine distributors website where you can see how the paintings look on finished labels!

Artist talk and reception this Tuesday

Just a quick post to announce an artist talk I will be giving this Tuesday, April 23rd, at 10 a.m., at Westminster Canterbury's Sarah Belle November Theatre in Richmond, VA. This will be an interview styled talk illustrated with a slide show, with questions opening up to the audience afterwards. The talk is in conjunction with the exhibition of my work hanging in the neighboring galleries. Reception immediately follows in the exhibit space located in the H. Scott November Gallery. Please call the cultural art center at 264-6268 for more information. Both the talk and the reception are open to the public, so if you are in Richmond, I hope you will consider coming out!

Two feature shows opening this month

Happy April everyone! Even though its still pretty chilly around here in Richmond, the birds are back and early spring blooms are everywhere. My garden, however, is still pretty much a mess. Old growth covers new, and even though it's driving me crazy to have it look like that, I haven't had time to deal with it.

That's my cat Olive in the background, looking at me with mild disdain.

My studio is looking like it is following suit as well.

This is my framing table. I'm too embarrassed to show you what the rest of the studio looks like right now!

Not exactly "Martha Stewart Living".   But I have an excuse.  I have been busy framing and shipping paintings for two feature shows in April. First, in Bernardsville, New Jersey, I am April's featured artist at Design Domaine Gallery. On view are a collection of my paintings from Europe and the American South. If you are up that way, stop in tonight, April 5th, for a wine and cheese reception from 6 to 9 PM., and say hi to owners Larry and Marilyn Rosenthal. Thanks Larry and Marilyn for featuring my paintings!

Another sizable exhibit of my work has just been installed at the H. Scott November Gallery at Westminster Canterbury here good ole RVA. This beatuiful exhibition space features rotating quarterly shows of artists from throughout Virginia. On view from now until June are my paintings of the French and Italian countryside. There will be a reception and artist Q&A later in the month on April 23rd. I am so happy and honored to have the opportunity to exhibit at these wonderful venues.

Sogno Rosso

We have been back from Thanksgiving travels for a week now, and we all received an awesome airline door prize in the form of the virus-of-the-day.  It's on the way out now, but I guess I should not be surprised to have contracted something, travelling with a toddler (who, especially since she has been in preschool has become the human petri dish!) Well, I guess as they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Any way, I am back to painting now, and I have really missed my studio time.  As I mentioned before, I am sticking to some smaller paintings for a while. The holiday schedule seems to just get fuller and crazier with each passing year. So, for sanity's sake, I think I am finally learning to just be kind to myself at the outset and not even attempt anything overly ambitious during this time.

So December is officially small painting month for me! And here, to prove my point, is a 12x16" painting of the Val d'Orcia, in Tuscany:

The compositional sketch:

: First lay in... Final...

"Sogno Rosso" Oil on Canvas, 12"x16" Click here for purchasing info or just contact me !

The Tuscan landscape just seems to roll on forever. It is a painter's dream. That idea is the inspiration for the title. "Sogno" (= dream), and "Rosso" (= the red field of poppies). I am painting from photos, memory, and imagination. The photos are the touchstone, but through memory I hope to convey my feelings for this place, which, from the very first time I laid eyes on it, has pulled at my heartstrings.

I rarely paint anything exactly as it is, (whether painting from photographs or life) so that's where the "imagination" comes in. I compose, rearrange, and edit until I acheive a composition and a statement that is pleasing to me. I want to stay true to the place, but really, it's just a moment in time, and an impression of the natural world that I'm after.

Though I am temporarily committed to keeping my painting sizes small, I think this composition cries out to be reincarnated as a larger piece at some future point. What do you think?

Benvenuti in Toscana

We are traveling next week in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday, so I am limiting my sizes in the studio to avoid having a half-finished or unresolved painting when we come home. Here is a little 9x12" painting of the Val d'Orcia , set high up on an olive grove. The scene then slopes down to a Tuscan farmhouse and then back up to the hillsides beyond.

"Benvenuti in Toscana" Oil on Canvas, 9x12"

I plan to do a few smaller works like these over the next while to serve as studies for possibly larger scaled paintings. I liked the idea of undulating rhythm as this painting leads the eye up and down the hillsides. And while I am happy enough with it on a small scale, I'm undecided if I will attempt it in a larger rendition. For now  I think I will move along to one of the other compositional ideas that I have cooking. Hopefully I'll have more along that line by week's end.