landscape – Anna Dennis

Paths and a Patch.

Here are some paintings of where I live in Liguria, Italy. They were all done in Spring and from life hence the spring greens.

thewaytosantamaria_oilpainting_annadennis — The Way to Santa Maria. 60cm x 50cm, oil on panel.

There is a man in Santa Maria, this small hamlet above who once gave us some delicious onion sets from seeds that he has been using from the past fifty years, and before. They are the sweetest onions to be eaten raw in salads or stuffed. Not many people around here buy seeds but have been reseeding from the existing plant. So they say the tomatoes that are easily diseased are always the seeds bought from the mass producers in the shops!

pathinspring — Path in Spring. 35cm x 45cm, oil on wood.

This road takes you to another nearby village called Sasseta. Thirty years ago there was only a mule track but times have changed and there is now a road which even more bumpy than the mule track.

inthegarden_oilpainting2_annadennis — In the Garden. 75cm x 90cm, oil on canvas.

Our vegetable garden with sunflowers and cucumbers and various other things including my children having a snack 🙂

wisteriainbud — Wisteria before Bloom. 20cm x 30cm, oil on wood.

There is something I find a bit overwhelming when painting a Wisteria tree when it is in full bloom so here is a little sketch of it about to come into flower.

Ciao for now and just to keep up to date I will be posting some paintings from this summer soon!

May

La Villa Abbandonata. Oil on wood, 30cm x 40cm. Wisteria. Oil on wood, 30cm x 40cm. In Italy during May gardens are at their best, even when they have been forgotten but where everything still grows anyway. I stumbled across this villa and the garden that is almost abandoned and it was fun trying to put some long awaited colours into the greenery, with the spring grasses long and overgrown and the little wild flowers reaching through!

The Orange Tree and La Damigiana.

Finding a title for a painting is a sometimes a struggle! I chose this view because I liked the effect of the afternoon light on the house and the orange tree with the glass damigiana in the foreground but when it came to finding a title nothing very interesting came up. In Italy the glass bottle in the foreground is called a ‘damigiana’ and in English a ‘demijohn’. The word damigiana is definently a more elegant term than the blunter English word demijohn which I wouldn’t have put in the title !

Traditionally in Italy a damigiana is used for wine making and you are always sure to find a good selection of empty ones like this in most rural Italian families although nowadays they are used less due to the more modern ways of wine making. Except you can’t beat a damigiana full of wine compared to a bottle!

The Beginning of March.

In these two sketches from life I aimed to capture the movement in what was infront of me instead of fussing over a bigger composition and trying to make a more interesting picture. A raging torrent after a big storm and a sun filled, bright yellow Mimosa tree that was exploding with yellow flowers are just a couple of March’s crazy offerings.

Today it is International Womans Day and it seemed a good day to post a picture of Mimosa (in Italy it is the number 1 flower today!) and lets give hope and courage to women and their familes fleeing from war torn countries.

branchofmimosa — Branch of a Mimosa Tree. Oil on board, 20cm x 30cm.

sketchofriver — Sketch of a Torrent. Oil on board, 20cm x 30cm.

New Year

Sasseta is a typical Ligurian mountain village in the valleys behind the Cinque Terre, 55 people live here including me and my family and the surrounding area is called Zignago that has a community of 550 which covers an area of 2785 km, made up of rural farmland and woodland.

Sometimes Italy feels quite densely populated due to the geography of the land and many people live in the sprawling towns on the flat or as near to the coast as possible but right here in the mountains life slows down, less people want to live so remote and there is more space and fresh air even though the neighbouring wild boar can be pretty annoying!

I really enjoy painting the colours of the countryside in winter, so many reds, pinks and greys find their way onto the palette and with the recent mild weather the trees still have most of their orange autumn leaves still on the branches.

Thanks for stopping by!

Some Inspiration for 2016

This year 2016 the Italian goverment has given 500 euros for each 18 year old to spend on museums and cultural events. What a shame that I am not 18 so here’s to 2016 and maybe a lottery win (!!) to dream and spend on a round the world ticket to go and see these well known paintings from life that inspire me.

Giorgio Belloni (1861-1944) was a well known artist from the north of Italy. He painted Italian alpine scenes and portraits and specialised in seascapes which were painted from life during summer stays near Genova and the Ligurian Riveria near to where I live. His paintings are distinguished by a poetic and evocative atmosphere and I love his use of light in this painting.

I enjoy looking at Sorolla’s (1863-1923) beautifully painted representation of a group of Spanish fishermen and their wives (?) sewing the sails under the dappled sunlight of Valencia in 1896. Measuring 222 x 300cm it is a big canvas and full of life.

arthur streeton_the purpl moon's transparant might 1896 — Arthur Streeton. The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might, 1896

Authur Streeton (1867-1943) is known for his landscapes that capture the unique light and colour of the Australian outback. Often when he painted he bought with him poetry to read, ‘The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might’ is a title influenced from a poem by the poet Shelley that embraces the natural world, the sun, sky, water and mountains. Apparantly the painting was painted in two days while experiencing a fiery trance due to the sweltering Australian heat!

John_Singer_Sargent-An-Artist-in-His-Studio__1904 — John Singer Sargent, An Artist in his Studio, 1904.

Here we are looking over the shoulder of the Italian artist Ambrogio Raffele while he paints in his cramped and untidy hotel bedroom during a summer holiday in the Italian Alps with Sargent and his friends. I think this painting is one that Sargent has handled with an extraordinary display of brilliant brushwork. My eyes keep on looking at the back of the artists head as he contemplates his painting.

All the Best for 2016 and thankyou for your support and inspiration!

Winter Pines

Last month I subscribed to Making a Mark a practical and well known blog for artists. It is packed full of information, techniques and tips for art and business in the art world.

I was happy to see a mention of my painting During the Summer which was exhibited in the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, 2015 London show in December. The author goes to many art exhibitions and writes up a blog review afterwards. This was one of them.

Here is the link to her review and from here you can continue to read her other posts:

http://makingamark.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/review-2015-exhibition-of-ROI.html

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas!

A brief scattering of snow in the hills above where we live is all what was given for this quick painting before the year is out. (It was quick because after a bit of standing around I find dark forests get cold and creepy!)

winterpineforest_annadennis — Winter Pines, Oil on Wood, 20cm x 30cm.

During the Summer.

I am really pleased that this painting of our vegetable garden “During the Summer” has been chosen to be exhibited in the Royal Society of Oil Painters Exhibition in the Mall Galleries, London from the 2nd Dec – 13th Dec. The exhibition will be showing over 300 paintings from 120 artists and I’m looking forward to seeing all the works on show.

This painting is something I worked on during this summer, it’s bigger than usual and a nice change to working small, I feel I can be more imaginative with more space on the canvas. Bigger brushes and less to worry about!

There is an art to selecting the site to grow vegetables and deciding what to plant in a small time limit, this summer in Italy was extremly hot and from experience painting is sometimes more simple than growing vegetables! Just like oil painting growing things requires alot of learning by mistakes and the best advice we get is from the local people who pass us down knowledge learnt from their previous generations working the land.

I painted this scene to remember what was growing here during the summer of 2015 and be reminded to bring about new changes for 2016. Next year it will be a completely different layout because seasonal scenes like this only last a couple of months before plants get eaten (the vicious cycle of life!) and new plants grow.

It would be great to see you on the 2nd December at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2015 – See more at:

http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/royal-institute-oil-painters-annual-exhibition-2015#sthash.H33vZJBc.dpuf

Have a good weekend!

Autumn Rose Oil Painting Studies

Rose Study with Trees, oil on wooden board, 20cmx 30cm.

I decided to do a couple of rose studies while the roses were still flowering, for me roses and the soft autumn light this year is more inspiring than what was offered in spring. Autumn brings the most colourful season and it feels good to be outside painting it! While the undergrowth turns away for winter and the possibilities of summer are gone I noticed the little things that still hang on like the flowering roses, beautiful soft pink roses clashing with the autumn decay!

I tried to define the rose leaves and petals with a flat brush, cutting into the wet paint to “sculpt” the petal or leaf without drawing it was easier. There is alot to look at when painting foliage so it was time to forget about each individual leaf and look out for the areas of darks and lights.

The Back Terrace

Zinnia flowers are the lazy gardeners best friend. Last year I started off with just a few and this summer they had grown everywhere, a forest of colours attracting so many butterflies and hummingbird hawk-moths. They are late summers last burst of sunshine and even though autumn is here the sun is still shining on this terrace!

What struck me to paint this scene was the way that the brightly coloured flowers light up against the dark background which I think helps to break up some of the bushy leafy greens. After a bit of experimenting to get the flowers to jump out I decided to dull down and darken the green leaves while using different variations of colour, value and chroma to keep the green interesting. To express the brightness of the flowers which bring a bit of excitement into an otherwise big area of green I tried to keep the reds as saturated as possible, paint does not come close to real life’s value range and it is suprising how colours in nature are brighter than the colours you can make on the palette!

Ciao!

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