Coming Clean Closing

Open through New Year's Eve, Coming Clean is still showing at The Loft Gallery in Occoquan. Go for a fabulous taste of Italy from Naples to Venice, laundry or no.

Find a map and gallery hours at the Virginia Tourism site, below. See you there!

Tuscan Harvest

The photographic reference for this pastel painting came during a train trip from Rome to Venice and I know it was from north of Florence, but I am not sure how far north. The entire trip was wonderful for seeing the lush fields and vendor carts. This is my homage to them.

This was the beginning of the piece, prior to a water floated underpainting.

Tuscan Harvest
pastel
12x16

San Michele

San Michele is another beautiful island near Venice. The brick walls makes one wonder what is within.

This is among my miniature collection for the exhibit.

San Michele
3x4
pastel

Valle a Campania

I took many reference photos out a bus, ferry, taxi, or train; often times it was out the other side of the transportation. This one was like that through a bus's window into a glowing Campania valley.There were so many levels and layers to the landscape that I chose to use a different style to show it. Call it elongated pointillism ... over a watercolor underpainting on UArt 500.

Okay, I did manufacture the cloud, so Naples Sun is not the only painting with a cloud, but it is the only genuine one.

Valle a Campania
4x10
pastel

Coming Clean Opening

The Virginia Tourism website has more details about today's opening of Coming Clean: Clotheslines in Italy.

Also find a map and gallery hours. See you there!

Naples Sun

A pair with Naples Fresh, Naples Sun depicts several buildings which could boast of laundry billowing in the breeze and drying in the heat. It also has the pleasure of having my only cloud in the whole series. Anyone looking at my blog knows how I love to paint a cloud!

Naples Sun
pastel
8x8

Naples Fresh

Naples is a port city. It reminded me of an old woman with beautiful bones, but past her time. The living accommodations also seemed to limit space for appliances ... to my benefit. There was laundry everywhere!

Naples Fresh
8x8
pastel

Linee Electriche

The reference photo for Linee Electriche was taken early one morning as we traveled by bus from Rome to Naples and Pompeii; it is from the Campania Region.

There are many sorts of lines, not all hold laundry. I especially like that this painting shows adjacent electric towers, one with lines closer to a mountain ridge and heading deep into a valley. Just like laundry lines, they run every which way.

 

Linee Electriche

4x10

pastel

Burano Colori

From a photo I took in Burano, Italy, a small island known for their lace industry, colorful houses, and fishermen, this pastel painting is a play on what colors you'll find in Burano. Instead of the emphasis being on a colorful house, the emphasis is on the colorful laundry I found there instead.

Burano Colori
9x12
pastel
SOLD

Venezia Originale

All referencing my own photography from August 2011, some of my paintings for this exhibit are charming miniatures which have nothing or everything to do with laundry! The photo basis for this one came from our trip the airport, which is primarily accessible via water taxis, beautiful wooden powerboats which zoomed along within these structures as guidance.

The painting's title salutes Venice's origins, the marshes, which still exist at its edges.

Venice Originale
3x4
pastel

Coming Clean: Clothlines in Italy

My first Featured Artist exhibit at The Loft Gallery at 313 Mill St in Occoquan is called "Coming Clean: Clotheslines in Italy" and runs from December 6 through December 30.

You are invited to my opening, which will be officially from 1-4p on Saturday, December 10, and will feature Italy-inspired food and live violin music. Unofficially, the reception will begin before noon; come around 11:30 to get your free ticket in the Occoquan $1000 in gift certificates drawing at noon.

The exhibit marries my two loves: I use my own photographic references as the basis for pastel vignettes of this highly intimate subject, laundry, found hanging in southern, central, and northern Italy.  It's been a labor of love, so come out and see this collection of pastels.

Workhouse Small Works in Building 16

Come by the Workhouse in December for the continuing W-16 Associates Small Works ShowS. Yes, that "S" means the show will change over each month and the next time is on December 7.

Sales can walk, so we will back fill to keep the gallery freshly stocked. Come early, as these little pretties go fast. Check out the new gift shop in W-16, too, which also features small works as well as other gift items created by Workhouse artists!