Leaving Orvieto, 8x10

The Winslow Art Center.....
.....has just announced my painting workshop in Umbria, very near Orvieto which we will visit.  I spent seven days in Orvieto during our last trip to Italy and not only is the city amazing but the countryside around it, where we will be staying, is terrific.  Take some time to check out the details HERE.  There are already people signing up.

Open to sketchers and/or painters in oil, gouache or acrylic, we will work both independently and as a group, around the villa and on day trips in the area.  More details on the website and from me later.  It looks terrific.

This small painting is actually on top of a portrait that ended up less than inspiring.  Turning the panel upside down I just blocked in the major 'dark' shapes.  I don't have a pic of the painting process but the block in looked something like this.....but with an upside down face under the paint.

Perhaps this will help to see it:

To me, when I squinted, the buildings were mostly in shadow and the sky and road carried the light.  You could just as easily have said the buildings are warm and the sky and road are cool....doesn't matter.  It's the division of shape characteristics that carries the weight of the painting.  As long as I did't go too far out of my original values (or temperature if that is how you see it) it was going to work.

Yes, there are light shapes in the dark areas.....or there are cool shapes in the warm areas....whichever.  Yet there aren't enough of those to break up the initial vision.

With those shapes loosely blocked there was no reason to draw any lines or create more definition.  I could begin 'paint carving' right away, using a limited number of values both lighter and darker than the shape.  Painting is just 'big shapes and doodads'.....I used to title my painting class that name.

By the way, here is a drawing I've posted before that was done just to the right of this vantage point maybe twenty feet and back.  Those houses on the lower left are the ones in the painting.  I drew it in the rain, shading my paper, markers and gouache with my hunched body.  It was fortunate that the heavy drops held off until about 2 minutes after I finished.

Thanks for looking.  Back soon.