URBAN SKETCHING

URBAN SKETCHING

Sketching in Firenze

This is a photo from two years ago, April 2017, when I really discovered  Urban Sketching

- and got hooked!

There was a Sketching Maratona in Florence and I met many persons that have become my friends.

Ferrara, May 2019

Ferrara, 2019

Monza, May 2019

Since then  I have been drawing and sketching in their company, and alone, 

all around Florence, Rome,

Tuscany, Sardinia and Italy, Spain, Greece and Finland.

I still use mostly watercolors, but I have discovered, or returned to, other mediums as well.

Above are some of my latest watercolor sketches.

Hope to see you soon and sketch or paint together!

Watercolour studies - more pears!

If you have seen my earlier posts (here and here) you can see how my paintings developed, getting simplier!

I also changed the accent colours, choosing from the real ones I would see.

 I painted many more, but already sent them as postcards! 

At the end I ran out of the ready cut  paper - and used some Canson 200 gsm paper for the last pears( as the one above). It dried much faster, and doesn't have the structure of the Fabraiano Artistico coldpressed watercolour paper, but it's also interesting.

Now - it was time to stop!

But I will definitely repeat this painting session as an excercise soon. I also recommend it as a watercolour lesson to everybody: choose a  simple subject, paint small size and repeat several times!

It's very meditative and zen - and you learn a lot!

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!

Painting challenge!

It's time to show my ltest participation in the painting challenge by paintanddrawtogether.blogspot :

 the entrance to Ottawa Parliament Building (click on the link for the reference picture).

This time I was quite happy with the colors (that I deliberately exagerated a little!), the light and the layers - but Oh! again: how hard isn't it to get a decent photo of your painting!?

A detail.

As so often, even now I did a few attempts!

Mixed Media Sketching Tuesday!

Last week I had a wonderful afternoon, drinking tea and sketching and painting with my friends!
I was supposed to stop by just for a while, and didn't bring much material with me, only and old book and some white gouache. While chatting and sipping on the tea, I started to partially cover  the book pages with the white paint... I really didn't have any idea of what I was going to do...

 Since I didn't have any watercolors with me I then used the different teas on the paper for some abstract designs for warming up, and finished with some watercolor pencils...

Now I was inspired enough to end up with some small and loose mixed media sketches of coffee and tea cups! I really enjoyed improvisating and sketching in good company, and I was quite happy with the result as well, even if these are no traditional watercolor paintings -  what do you think?!

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?

Small landscape paintings

The other day I had a walk in the afternoon, 

 and Oh, all of a sudden there was such a beautiful light! The hills of Chianti were lit by the late sun and turned out red - the contrast with the olive groves was just wonderful! Unfortunately I couldn't capture the beauty of the moment, but  I really wanted to paint it, so later I did it from my memory! 

I also framed some of my small landscapes with a passepartout because it really makes a difference, The works look much nicer when more finished up, don't you agree!?

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?

Still life Challenge - Part 2 - loose watercolor painting!

The very first approach, this time I'm painting wet in wet. No drawing, just a light layer of color to mark the volumes and shapes.

What I adore most in this photo, is the blue shadow of the jar of water!

Usually I would have painted the light green tomatoe first, but since I had started with deepening the reds, I was obliged to let the greens wait a while, not to mix up everything. Since I couldn't keep my hands away, I went along with the browns of the jug meanwhile.

Here you can see the proceeding of the green color and the table. The background is still very light.

The result is fresh and loose and I left it aside to dry.

In fact, I wanted to paint a third one - THE painting, but because of my time restrictions painting was postponed ...

But, once this painting was dry, I went back on it with the finishing shadows and more details. I also painted the background darker, to make the objects stand out more.
I did enjoy the whole painting session a lot, especially sketching in a loose way!

You can click on the link of Paint and Draw Together to see the source photo and more paintings of the same subject, as I mentioned in my previous post.