Italia!

You may have noticed that I've been off line for a while.  It is now about 4:00 in the a.m. here and I am coping with a little jet lag.  We have just returned from a two week trip to Italy, one week in Rome and one week in Tuscany.  A dream trip that we have been planning for well over a year.

We walked all the little side streets of Rome, hiked quit a few very hilly towns, and floated through Florence not believing what we were seeing or that we were there.
I saw the Sistine Chapel!  After a little ugly crying just to be there, I was completly awestruck.

Here are just a few of the well over a thousand pictures I took throught out the trip.

Our apartment in Rome was in Vatican City.  So, we walked up to the Vaticani our first night in town.
Here are Larry and I with St. Peter's in the background.  Later in the week we had a private tour of the Vatican.
It is the largest cathedral in the world with St. Patrick's in NYC fitting inside only a small section of it.
I expected to see paintings but was surprised at the collections of ancient
Etruscan, Greek and Roman sculpture and mosaics.

"The School of Athens" by Raphael, inside the Pope's apartment.

Michelangelo's "Pieta"

Crossing the Tiber River.

Inside the Colosseum.  We spent days touring Roman antiquity.
In addition to the Colosseum,  the Pantheon, and hiked all around the
Forum.

Countless beautiful shops, side streets and entertainers.

  

After a week in Rome, we moved onto our villa in Tuscany.
This is our backyard with miles of rolling hills behind.
Everyday we toured a different village in this region, did some wine and olive oil tasting and found the most elegant little restaurants amid former horse stables and farms.

Here we are with my brother and sister-in-law, Dick and Terri at an overlook point above Florence.

Just an amazing trip and I count myself so lucky to have actually been there.  Rome was just dazzling in the amount of antiquity we experienced.  Tuscany, as beautiful as you can imagine.  I have to say my favorite city overall was Florence.  So much art and art history.  We saw everything we could including the house Michelangelo grew up in, the church where he is buried (just around the corner from his childhood home) , of course, museums and a gifted tour guide who showed us a fabulous time through the city.

I have so much beautiful research that I will spend the summer working on an Italian series of paintings.
But not of the tourist sites, as breathtaking as they are, but the little things that say Italy.
A wonderful country with friendly people and food I will miss for a long time.
I have to say, tho, it was great to have an American cup of coffee this morning!

"Hearts Alight"

"Hearts Alight", Watercolor, 14" x 20"

© Carmella Tuliszewski 2012

I actually finished "Hearts Alight" almost a week ago but kept "playing" with it by picking out little touches here and there.  I had a great time working on this and learned so much that I'm sure will be helpful on future projects.  The crystal dish did a lot of fun things to the objects in and around it.  Each section of the glass distorted the area below, making each section it's own little abstract design.

Here are the progressions.

Well, this goes on my board and I'll move onto something else.  But I'm sure I'll be taking it down every once in awhile to "play" before I submit it to the show. 

Before I go I'd like to share a new (to me) product I used for this painting.  As you can imagine there were a lot of highlights to preserve in this picture.  I try not to use white paint because it changes the feel of the work.  So that leaves some sort of masking product.  Honestly, I have not had much success with masking fluids.  They destroy brushes, dry too fast and are never thin enough for subtle highlights.

I saw this product at Jerry's Artarama.  These two are fine and superfine points.  The long needled cap inserts and keeps the fluid from clogging.

They worked great and if you gently squeeze and hold the bottle to the side as you drag it along you can get a very fine line.  It dries to a light blue color. I am thrilled to have found this.  Give it a try.

It's called MASQUEPEN. 

"Hearts Alight" in Progress

I found this beautiful crystal heart dish in my favorite thrift store and just knew I had to use it.
So I put together this set up where all the contents are heart shaped.  I placed this in an east facing window and found my view with strong sunlight shooting thru the glass.

I always spend a lot of time on the drawing part of the prep.  I love drawing detail, always have, so I often linger on this before beginning the painting.  No amount of color will fix a bad drawing.
I have never painted crystal before.  The more I have worked out ahead the more confident I feel when I pick up my brush.

Laying in washes and beginning details.  I was most concerned about making that foil wrapped chocolate heart look convincing (never painted foil before either!).  But I think I've got it worked out so onward I go.

"Hearts Alight", Watercolor, 14" x 20"

© Carmella Tuliszewski

I knew painting the crystal would be challenging but I did not realize how difficult rendering the light refracted through the crystal would be!  Needs more play but so far so good.  Also it's all sitting on tissue wrapping paper.   I love the way the tissue looks in that upper left corner but the rest needs work.

Well, here I go into unknown territory with that crystal dish!  

I hope to have a finish to show in a few days.

Kaleidoscopic Names

I consider these elaborate "doodles".  It was originally done as part of a Color Theory Unit for my students.  I love the puzzle of working out the design and hiding the name in plain sight.  It also is a productive way to experiment with various color combinations.

"Larry",  Watercolor, 12" x 12"

© Carmella Tuliszewski 2011

As you can see from the title, it reads as "Larry", for my husband.  Can you find it?

I'm sure there are ways to do this through computer art but there is something about the process and results of hand made items that I still hold dear.  

"Well Loved Doves" (All Done)

Because of my personal relationship with these two little stuffed doves this was a true labor of love.
Every turn of the ribbon and twist of leaves and twigs was a process I throughly enjoyed.

"Well Loved Doves",  Watercolor,  12" x 18"

© Carmella Tuliszewski  2012

I'm sure I will walk into my studio tomorrow morning with coffee in hand, stare at the painting for awhile and sit to pick at it for another hour or two.  I do have more refining to do on the right side.
The most difficult part of this piece was the jumble of twigs and leaves in the background.  I found that you have to focus on one leaf at a time and not get confused by the whole scene.  Also making it obvious that they are stuffed birds and not real birds drawn badly.

It will go up on my board in wait of a framing sale at Michael's.

I have the next painting ready to go.  It is a composite of several photos taken at the Philadelphia Flower Show a couple of years ago.  Now that we are deep into winter I look forward to some brightly colored flowers to work on.  

It's been a little over a month since I started this blog and I have to say I am really enjoying it.

I am getting 60 to 100 views a day.  Maybe not much by some standards but I started this as a visual journal for myself and am just thrilled to have people from around the world look in once in awhile!

Thanks you for stopping by!

Please scroll down through the next three post to see progressions.

"Well Loved Doves" (Almost There)

Not far to go now but I wanted to share one last view before the finish.

© Carmella Tuliszewski 2012

The greens are the story this time.  There is still much defining to do between leaf shapes and values.
I mix most of my own greens using varying shades of blues, browns, violets and yellows but the greens I use from the tube most often are Hookers Green Dark and Sap Green.  The reason I mix most of my own greens is because some greens from the tube are highly pigmented.  This means they can actually have a gritty texture and become dirty looking.  Modeling the leaf greens so that they become part of the whole and not a muddled mess is tricky and I move slowing here to refine and define while still trying to keep it natural looking.

My table at this point.  I am a neat, organized painter.  Most of which comes from being on staff as an artist in an open space and attempting to keep my area respectable looking.

I will be back next time with the completed painting.  At this point I am thinking about the next project and ready to move on.  But it is exciting the closer I get to the finish and that keeps me focused.

"Well Loved Doves" (Almost Halfway Through)

Well I am at that point in a painting which every artist loves.  There's still a long way to go but the composition is set, the colors are worked out and I can see it completed in my head.  Love that!

© Carmella Tuliszewski 2012

The grays are very important here, and as I've mentioned before, no blacks in the grays.  Of course you can use a black or a gray right from the tube, but making your own gray out of a wonderful combination of blues, violets and even greens is much more satisfying.  In this case I have used Permanent Rose, Ultramarine Blue and New Gamgoge.  In spots there is even a little Hookers Green washed in to reflect the leaves.  I can see now that because the red in the ribbon is so strong I will have to darken some of those grays but that will come later.  For now it's onto the many greens and details, details, details!  Have a good weekend everyone!