Watercolor masters

• John James Audubon • William Blake • Charles Burchfield • Paul Cézanne • Tony Couch • J.S. Cotman • J.W.S. Cox • Honoré Daumier • Charles Demuth • Albrecht Dürer • Thomas Eakins • Thomas Girtin • Childe Hassam • Tom Hill • Winslow Homer • Edward Hopper • George Inness • Ted Kautzky • Henry G. Keller • Dong Kingman • Paul Klee • John LaFarge • Tom Lynch • John Marin • Reginald Marsh • Thomas Moran • Georgia O'Keefe • Maurice Prendergast • Frederick Remington • John Singer Sargent • Irving Shapiro • Charles Sheeler • William Sommer • Zoltan Szabo • J.M.W. Turner • Vincent Van Gogh • Frank Webb • James McNeill Whistler • Edgar A. Whitney • Frank Wilcox • Andrew Wyeth

Sketches from the Uffizi

A whole afternoon in the Uffizi gallery, well worth it. Loved the 13th Century patterned artworks, and the ceilings of the main corridor in particular - painted covings in blue and gold and light decorative scenes painted all the way down the corridor. Here are a couple of sketches as no photos could be taken.Scenes from the lives of hermits, - monks was an intricate painting and I fell in love with these little boats dotted around the sea.

San Giovanni D'Asso view over vineyard

A sunny day at last, but still icey cold. This is the view of San Giovanni D'Asso coming from the clay track to Poggio Boldrini about a mile away.

Rainbow

A nice interlude to the rain...

René PleinAir

Just been admiring plein air paintings by René Beeldendkunstenaar, a self-taught artist living and working in the Netherlands. He has some beautiful painting of the snow and ice this winter. Please go and have a look at his blog.

Rain in the olivegrove

A quick sprint with the paints during a break in the rain to the olivegrove...

Snow, mud, snow, mud

All snow and rain at the moment, not much decent painting weather now!

Florence

The Ponte Vecchio was being renovated on the other side of the bridge, so a view from this side instead. I sketched this picture surrounded by hoards of people jossling for a view of this famous bridge and illegal traders selling handbags. A lot of watercolour and caricature artists selling their wares in the street here, some quite good, others pretty poor.

Happy New Year! 2010 here we come...

Rain,rain, rain, Collage!

After 2 days of rain (which I ain't going out in to paint in), I'm in the mood for trying out the collage landscape. Made glue from flour and water, that still works like magic.

Oak in the garden

Looking towards the house, with lovely big oak trees on the top bank. It's so cold and wet...I have my flask of hot chocolate with me now. Paper is so damp!

Monterongriffoli walk

A long walk today and just one painting at lunch.

Quickly, before it rains again...

Such short hours in which to paint, between the rain and before it gets too cold, I managed just two today after the Christmas break behind the capanna looking towards the olives.

Cold and overcast Tuscan hills

Winter olive groves

It's very cold today, the paper doesn't dry...I'm at the limits of this medium...give me some oils or acrylic and I'll have to work with that.

The Valley

So it's pretty cold at the moment, but the light is good today and the winter colours are quite interesting..lots of greys, purples and muted browns.

Olivegrove at Poggio Boldrini

Last night we had snow, about half an inch, so everything was white at last, a great change to the landscape...within 3 hours most of it had melted though, so just a couple of white paintings.
A little postcard for Martin.

Olive groves and Tuscan hills

Experimenting with very bold washes wax on top of the first layer. All todays paintings are here.

Olive washes

Today is all loose and watery...but is it getting too cold to paint? I thought not until my paint froze on my palette (we're talking watercolours here!) and ice crystals formed on my paper. I cannot go on like this..now I need another medium! Ahh or perhaps hot water??

Trees dot the landscape

A few small sketches today, I really, really like the first one. The colours flow into each other and there is a good balance of black to white. I usually put too much black in at the end and it becomes a bit heavy and dark, but this one I like. Painting from today are here.