PAINTING EN PLEIN AIR

VILLA IL VENTAGLIO FIRENZE

This year has started with many pleasant news regarding arts. 

First of all my work was selected to Fabriano in Italy, 

but I will tell you more about that in another post, maybe with some photos...

Then my friend Natus had the brilliant idea 

to create a group of

watercolour painters in Florence. 

We meet regularly to paint together in different places of the city 

- urban locations - we've met in Fiesole, P.zza Santo Spirito or -

 as in this case - in a garden, Villa il Ventaglio.

Such a lovely day!

It's a great occasion of sharing your passion with lovely people.

There are already many of us, and more join every time!

And -

another nice part is when at the end we usually have lunch together!

Floral - just sketching!

I often use my sketchbooks for playing around and painting early in the morning 

- even when I don't have time ! And yes, often it is floral!

Sketching Cypresses!

A picture from my smaller sketchbook from last week!

Just playing around with colors and a common object -cypruses!

Caffè espresso!

I have been really busy lately, and had a hard time to find time to paint. Luckily I always get so inspired by Lela's blog Paint and Draw Together -link  here ! This time I didn't paint the suggested picture, but was inspired to paint all my different cups of espresso coffee!

This was absolutely fun - first of all, usually I do much larger paintings, (except for my recent small landscapes) while these are small, like the real cups. This means they were very fast  to paint, which was important these days. 

As you see, on some of these sketches I added some details in carbon or pencil. 

I really think I'll work more with this subject, I have some cups with pattern as well...

This was the first sketch, and actually the one I like most, I think it's more fresh and expressive than the others. This happens often, since when I sketch I feel free, while when I start a 'real' painting I maybe try too hard!? Does this happen to you as well?

New watercolors and Tuesday sketches - floral of course.

My dear friend is on holiday, and I'm watching her orchids, a beautiful subject and a good occasion to do some sketching with my new set of watercolors.

 After many years of painting with just a few basic colors,  I finally decided for  a box with a set of many new colors. It was a very good buy, since the single colors would be much more expensive, and also I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with the new shades. 

I'm also experimenting with plastic wrap for textures. It's interesting with patterns and designs appearing so magically... Still want to do some more and decide where I can use it... This is a first layer I'm gonna continue with, either adding more watercolor or maybe with a pencil, since I do see many shapes inside it.

Flowerpot with succulent - playing with watercolors!

Due to the recent repeated earthquakes in this area I haven't been able to concentrate on painting, so this is from my small sketchbook some time ago - just playing around with watercolor... The subject is a small flower pot with a succulent that I got as a present. It was fun to try to capture the colors and shapes very quickly...

                                                    A closer detail  of the flowers.

Wintercolors from my sketchbook!

It's Tuesday again, and I'm opening my sketchbook to show a few different works. They are all fast sketches  - just for the joy of capturing what inspires me at the moment. This is a 'Il Duomo' a detail of the Dome of Florence. Pencil and watercolors. Very basic and fast sketching, but yet, easily recognizable...

This page - actually a double page, as so often in my sketchbooks - is a quite big sized (approx. 60 x 35 cm) mixed media painting featuring mainly watercolors - of cours  - but also oil pastels and chalk pastels.

I called it 'Winterberries' because of the frosty colors... And I enjoyed the painting process a lot!

Well, this was surprisingly fun! A leftover piece of wrapping paper inspired me. I glued it to the sides of my large sketchbook, and then I painted and copied the design freely, with no preliminary drawing 

in monochromatic watercolor (Payne's Grey).

Atmospheres from Chianti - and Sketchbook Tuesday!

These are some pictures from Sunday, that I already shared on Instagram. 

Just a few details. 

Such a lovely atmosphere in such a beautiful place...

To the end, since it's my Sketchbook Tuesday, a sketch in watercolor and colored pen from a view in Tuscany. It was a rainy and foggy day, you couldn't see far away, and again I just wanted to capture the atmosphere...

Painting the sea in the winter - on a Sketchbook Tuesday!

I was very inspired thinking of the colors, the smell of salt, splashes of water... and movements of the waves - the everchanging sea in November.

This time I used gouache and mixed media - paper scraps, glue and pencil for the first one, and then I painted the other ones very fast mostly with gouache, but one also with watercolors.

 Which one do you prefer?

Painting Cats with watercolor in my sketchbook!

It's a National Black Cat Day in Italy Today -

This is to get to know them better and stop superstition

That's a great occasion to make a few fast watercolor sketches of my black cat.

This means that this will be my Tuesday sketching-daily-post one day earlier.

Painting with masking fluid in my small sketchbook

Even if I don't have too much time to make full size finished paintings, I try to do daily painting in my sketchbook(s). I love to try different technics, and in my sketcbook it doesn't matter what the final result is, so I find that painting becomes free and more expressive. Often the subject is from my fantasy, as here.

 This time I started with painting directly with the masking fluid (that I usually don't use), and then added a few layers of colors...  

Some is wet-in-wet, some is wet-on-dry...

Finally I removed the masking fluid and added some more detail.

Working with the masking fluid allows you to paint very freely and that I like, even if the outlines of the white is quite hard, and you have to soften it either with color or water.

 Next time I want to do a larger painting, taking away and adding the masking fluid in different places while proceeding...

From my sketchbook - cats!

Some time ago my dear friend Laura brought me a new watersoluble graffiti pen. So I sketched cats, and then I used water to soften up the drawings. A funny mix of sketching and watercolors!

Today - fresh paint in my sketchbook onTuesday!

I really like to play around with my watercolors and my sketchbook - and this time no flowers!

You can tell it isn't watercolor paper, but it's BIG - 30x36 cm - and it was a present from a dear friend plus I didn't find such a large sketchbook with watercolor paper yet!

BUT - I found this wonderful idea:  make-your-own-watercolor-pad , just click on it!

It's VERY simple, and I'm definitely going to do it!!  

It's a pity I just torn all the extra paper into SMALL pieces, I was planning to do some sketchbooks for gifts...

Floral sketchbook!

Yes, I love painting flowers, and I do a lot of floral sketches in my sketchbook. 

The sketchbook is ment for inspiration. It lays right there, easy to reach and use even every day, without any further planning or expectations. And even if the paper  - like in this case -isn't very suitable for watercolours, it allows me to test some ideas or new materials -

or just express the mood of the day!

Always sketching flowers!

 I love sketching and painting flowers in any style, and Alisa Burke is always a lot of inspiration for flowers and doodles and whatsoever! Her work and her blog just makes me happy!