Reading Italian

I’ve been in Ferrara, Italy, for over a week (also managed a day in Florence). The primary reason for being here has been to follow my paintings to the successful “Here Now” exhibition that ends today. Then again, any reason to be in Italy is a good reason.

Otherwise, I’ve been walking the city streets: buildings, people and art and everywhere I see something to paint. I’ve also been absorbing the Italian language but as I’m mostly a visual person, a painter, the written word holds better with me (at least for now). Today I met up with some sculpture that allowed me to read over a shoulder. Much fun. Ciao!

Too Warm For A Suit Jacket

Downtown streets are busy places: people with agendas, people with destinations and energies that seem to absorb everything. I watch a man walking across the street. He was jaywalking and seemed simply intent on getting somewhere. The day was warm and he was carrying his suit jacket. Just as he’d appeared from the sidewalk across the way he melted into the scene on the other side when he reached the curb.

“Shady Street Downtown”

The air always seems cleaner downtown when its cold. At least this is how it seems to me. Not sure why. Maybe it is because the shadows are more blue on a clear day in colder temperatures. Then again I’m not sure why. This is just how it seems to me.

As a landscape painter there”s a lot to take in as I walk around. For example, I’m always watching how shadows change the colour of things. Bright, unobstructed sunlight does this too. And I very much enjoy how shadows reach out from their source compared to how sunlight simply spreads as it gains strength. In painting “Shady Street Downtown” the shadows are winning at this point in the day: the sunlight could only seep through a very few locations across the pavement.

Of course this is not how it ended. As the day moved on the sunlight gained strength and the shadows receded as the colours to evolve. This, of course, would be another painting.