The first destination for my November 2015 painting trip to Italy was to Cinque Terre (five lands). I managed to do some paintings in Monterosso, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. You can spend a lot of time waiting for trains and then exploring the towns dragging your painting equipment cart up and down a lot of steps and over cobblestone roads, passageways, and trails.
I do have some great photos as inspiration for studio paintings at my "Studio on the Narrows" which overlooks the St Lawrence River at the narrows, just a short distance down river from the US span of the 1000 Islands Bridge. The bridge from the US mainland spans to Wellesley Island and then in 4 miles to Hill Island Ontario before reaching the Canadian mainland.
Studio paintings from photos bring back memories, impressions, and sensations, of the subjects, and with these and the plein air paintings and sketches. I hope to put the feelings I had in Italy into the paintings.
Below is my painting of part of the harbor at Vernazza. To the right is me painting. A gentleman asked if it was all right to take a picture of me. I said OK. When he finished I asked him to take one with my camera and he and his wife laughed with amusement over the tic for tac. I could not help grinning myself. Set up an easel anywhere in the world where there are tourists and you become part of their photo trip photo album, usually without asking permission. My daughter walked the coastal trail to Corniglia and back while i painted.
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| Harbor at Vernazza 11x14 oil plein air |
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| Painting at Vernazza |
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| Last Light Monterosso 11 x 15 Studio Watercolor |
Above is a watercolor studio painting with touches of gouache for detail and pastel to provide some definition of the trees in shadow. We always took the train back to our home base in Monterrosa at the end of the day in time to get to our favorite restaurant about 7 pm (1900) for dinner. The train station was about a 15 minute walk from the restaurant in the wrong direction, so that left us with a half hour walk to get to our rental house. The last 12 minutes of the walk was uphill. It was a good way to walk off the carbs from dinner. Below left is a photo by my daughter of me and my painting cart heading home after dinner.
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| Monterosso walk after dinner to get to rental house. |
Below left is me walking the coastal trail from Monterosso to Corniglia to check views for next day painting possibilities after having painting and lunching at Riomaggiore that morning. My bag that hold supplies and easel parts is held to the cart by bunji cords. Sometimes the bag slips enough to drag one corner and before I notice I have ground another hole in it. Also shown below is a photo of the rock formation on the trail close to Manarola. Looks like it was formed by getting pushed up by the tectonic plate action millions of years ago. See my online gallery at robert-p-hedden.pixels.com and select Galleries to see all my Itlay related paintings.
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| Rock formation on the trail to Corniglia near Manarola |
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| Dragging the painting cart on the trail from Manarola to Corniglia |
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