Earth, Wind,Fire

A rough journey.

2012-02-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

So, at last, we are here in Dorset and managing to be cosy in this freezing cold spell, after driving through blizzard snow conditions from Livernon (in the Lot) to Orleans when the sun came out. It was also freezing in Le Havre where we took the bucketing ferry across the raging rough English Channel.

This is my first "flying" painting, but I've now decided to put it into the exhibtion to join my three new "flying" paintings. However, it only just made it inside the car boot by about 0.5cms to spare.
I'm now keeping my fingers crossed that the forecast snow on Sunday doesn't arrive in London ... I almost feel doomed!

All set!

2012-01-26T01:32:00.000-08:00

Last painting finished!

Now I'm finishing off framing, packing, cleaning and looking forward to getting on the road to Le Havre and the ferry across to the UK. More than that, I am looking forward to a night somewhere new, and as yet unknown, in France and a delicious evening meal.

Monte Amiata

2012-01-23T03:25:00.000-08:00

Here are four more ready paintings for my exhibition (which I know I've shown before on this blog), but, at least, they have dry paint! I am now working on two canvases, which I'm trying hard to finish by the time we set off from here in SW France, on Monday the 30th February. They may well turn out to be a bit of a problem with smeary paint surfaces in Robert's car and he won't be happy if he finds blobs of oil paint inside it, after our journey to London.

Where I live in Tuscany, we are very near Tuscany's highest mountain, Monte Amiata where you can even ski in the winter ... well, it's a bit rough going for the smart set, but it's wonderfully located in the woods, and has a great little bar at the top where you can eat grilled sausages and have hot wine, before slithering down the so-called black run. Then you can have a glass of grappa at the bottom to recover. I love it!

I have a fascination with Amiata, dominating the sky, as you look south from Montisi. Its colours change from season to season and according to the time of day. It also has weather forecast properties, in that you can see a change of weather coming in from the Mediterranean side of its slopes. We used to live in Rapolano Terme, where the old people told us that if you see Monte Amiata with its hat on, it's time to take an umbrella ….. and invariably this turns out to be correct. So many times I knew we would most likely not be flying in the morning, because of Amiata having put its hat on.

This is exciting for me!

2012-01-19T06:35:00.000-08:00

In terrible weather in May (it even snowed!), I went down to Civita Castellana to paint in the footsteps of painters on their grand painting tour, such as Corot, Thomas Jones and Turner, who would stop there at a cheery hostelry down below the town. It was an ideal place to break their journeys to Rome and spend their days drawing and painting the extraordinary surrounding countryside.

I am hoping to return there in June this year and continue to paint in what I have found to be an exciting landscape. The plan is that quite a few of us foreign artists will put our work together in an exhibition in the middle of September 2012 and I have just had notice that the "comune" of Civita Castellana has produced a calendar for 2012 and I get February, which seems to augur well, since it's the month of my London show.

The top painting is by Bidauld, Jean Joseph Xavier Mount Soracte 1790 oil on paper.
I now know that all those painters travelled light with sheets of sized watercolour paper and not canvas. Also it would have been much more difficult in those days, as there were no tubes of paint and they had to cope with small quantities of colour wrapped in animal bladders, as in the photograph of ones I found here in France. I dread to think of the mess I would have got into using these!

The lower photograph is of a small painting I did last May, but I had the good fortune to be working with modern tubes of paint. This work is on a small canvas, but I am sorely tempted to give watercolour paper a go when I return later on this year.

The exhibition is titled;
"Con gli occhi degli artisti stranieri - Through foreign eyes"
Una mostra a Civita Castellana dal 19 al 26 settembre

All over the place!

2012-01-16T02:19:00.000-08:00

Since I last put up a post, we've been in Italy (where I was painting until the moment we left for Dorset, England) for a mega family Christmas which was organised by Robert's niece in a large comfortable farmhouse on beautiful, wild and muddy Eggardon ... then back to Montisi (Italy) to pack everything I might need for my exhibition in the middle of the busy post new year social life ... then back in the car for France with the dog ... and now back in the little French house with all the difficulties of speaking (trying to speak) another language, although I am lucky living in an Occitan area where the older people seem to understand a bit of Italian when I'm really stuck.

So, here I am finishing off my last painting, sorting frames and cataloguing my work in the warmth of the kitchen. As I searched my very chilly studio for something, I stumbled across this painting, which for some reason I had completely forgotten about what with all this moving around. I painted it in the great heat of August, near the small town of San Giovanni d'Asso. The place from where I wanted to paint was in a lay-by (always a mistake!) and I was mightily offended when nervous English holiday makers stood behind me for ages, until the man stumbled towards me and said, "Er ... excuse me, but are you Sheppard Craig?" I did have a baseball cap on to shade my eyes, and I was wearing shorts, but to mistake me for a man who must be at least 6ft 4ins was a bit upsetting to say the least.

Sheppard is a good friend of mine and was a very distinguished painter until the gardening bug got hold of him and he has been making and designing the most amazing set of gardens in the woods near San Giovanni d'Asso, while his wife Frances Lansing, also a brilliant painter, has been making whimsical and beautiful sculpture works for this magical place.

Here are two links;

1. About the garden http://www.laragnaia.com/EN/intro/
2. And some lovely photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/dermod/sets/1448135/

Almost there....

2011-12-11T02:59:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a break today and going off to lie in a pool of hot water ... it is Sunday after all, as well as being a dull drizzly day.

I think I'm almost there for my exhibition with just one more aerial painting finish. Hooray!

Struggling!

2011-12-02T07:20:00.001-08:00

With Christmas racing towards me, since I know we must leave for a big family Christmas in Dorset, I am racing against the clock to finish my last painting ideas for my London exhibition. These are oil paintings measuring 80cms x 50cms (there are three others started) and it's on a continuing theme of trying to capture the feeling of flight over land. It has been so many years that I have flown in the balloon and wanted to do this, that I hoped that the London exhibition would be the ideal time to show these works.

Although this, the first painting, has been a bit tricky to resolve, it's been fun to trace my way through the Sienese countryside that I know like the back of my hands after the many years I've driven chase to my husband's balloon and enjoyed it from the air.

French veggie gardens

2011-11-25T02:53:00.001-08:00

I love French "potagers"; a wonderful mix of flowers, vegetables, vines and farm animals. Maybe next year I will try and do more around this theme; large paintings even!

Still trying to finish the last works for my London exhibition and the deadline is looming .....aargh! Time to displace this activity and make another cup of coffee.

Back in Tuscany

2011-10-31T01:20:00.000-07:00

What a lovely homecoming to find Montisi in full swing with its annual olive oil festival. The village is divided into four "contrade" (Torre, Piazza, Castello and San Martino) and each one has a gang of brilliant cooks who must have enormous amount of energy to cook such wonderful food for the many visitors who come to this village festival. In the four days of festa, it's fun to try and fit in an eat at each contrada and I can now tell you, after three meals, that they are all absolutely delicious! The main point of all this effort is to promote the very wonderful olive oil that is produced here; a verdant green with a lovely spice to the taste, which is characteristic of this new season's olive oil.

This is the essential time to enjoy "bruschetta", because in a few months the oil will have slightly calmed down from that first extraordinary sap, artichoke and pepper flavour that bursts in on your taste buds. This freshly pressed oil was used to create the most divine ice-cream that has ever passed my lips, which was a feather weight, moon white and delicious olive oil (freshly pressed in Montisi of course!) gelato topped with delicate shavings of an aged pecorino cheese and a scattering of chives. The very simpatico ice-cream wizard who is responsible for these wonders can be found at; www.ilregelato.it

So, back to work! I'm unpacking and getting ready to finish the last paintings for my February exhibition. This little oil is a still-life using some more of the bits I've found at the French "vide-greniers" that go on the summer months .... the egg is from a local farm.

Travelling again!

2011-10-26T02:04:00.000-07:00

We have to go back to Italy to see an agent about our house, so Robert, Mosca and I are back in the car tomorrow for the long trip back to Montisi, leaving pretty France behind us for rather a long time. I can't be doing with any more disruption before my London exhibition and must settle to finishing the last paintings before we have to go and have Christmas fun with our family in Dorset. Ah well, c'est la vie!

Pumpkin

2011-10-12T00:49:00.000-07:00

The weather changed suddenly on Saturday with a rainstorm and chill temperatures. Although it's back in the 20°Cs, it is now definitely autumn as is evident by the vegetables on offer in the markets. I bought this pretty pumpkin "potiron" to make a warming soup, but first I thought I would like to paint it.

David Mackie

2011-10-10T01:45:00.000-07:00

http://cargocollective.com/davidmackie#1814026/Recent-Works

Caterpillar

Jonah

...and here are two of his new works for the exhibition.

54 The Gallery

2011-10-10T01:39:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning the countdown to my exhibition in London at the beginning of February. What with Christmas in the middle, I need to get the publicity side sorted now, as well as frantically trying to finish the work .... there is still so much I would like to get going on, but I must finish the unfinished first!

Since there's an extra space in the gallery, that is difficult to use for my painting, because despite the fact that it has very good artificial lighting, it has no natural lighting, I hit on the idea of inviting my good friend David Mackie, who also lives and works in Montisi. We've already had several exhibitions together in Italy and as I really like and admire his work, which is always beautifully crafted, I am thrilled to bits that he is enthusiastic to join me in this one week's gallery exhibition in a lovely and entertaining corner of Mayfair, in Shepherd Market.

The show is from Mon 6th Feb - Sat 11th Feb 2012

54 The Gallery
Shepherd Market
London W1J 7QX
Telephone: +44 (0)207 629 1495 (only during the exhibition)

Gallery window

Hot Tuscan August

2011-10-05T09:29:00.001-07:00

I'm starting a few new paintings and also emptying boxes, which I've just brought from Italy, of some of the work I did during the hot, hot Tuscan August.

I began this painting of the dusty, dry "crete senesi", looking across to Monte Amiata, in the hope that I would get a good afternoon sky when clouds generally start to collect over the peak of Amiata.

Back in France

2011-10-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm having fun sorting out my new studio in the attic here, which all came together by having the roof done in July and two windows on either side of the pitch added. I will one day sort out how to cover the silver insulation, without destroying the look of the rafters, but not until I've had my London exhibition in February next year.

Framing

2011-09-14T01:46:00.000-07:00

Things are beginning to fall in place for my exhibition coming up in February 2012 (www.lizgraham-yoollshow.com). I've just been to Florence to pick up the first of my frames from the most delightful and clever artisan, Pierluigi whose workshop is very near Porta Frediano.

The saddest thing for me is how the south side of the Arno, which even 15 years ago was the place for every imaginable artisan's workshop including one which made the wooden forms for making hats, has changed drastically. Unfortunately it has now become a coverted real estate area and Pierluigi is one of just about 20 artisans remaining there with a workshop. He was lamenting how they were at least 100 when he started working in the 70's and he's really fed up with people coming into his shop and asking him if knows of anywhere for sale. "Who do they think I am ... an estate agent?!" he splutters and sends them off with a flea in their ear.

One of the great treats still, is going to a small trattoria there, which is run by the same people that I knew in 1976, when I was studying painting there and the prices have remained the same good value, as has the food which is excellent. This last Friday I sat down to "acciughe in marinara", a heavenly plate of fresh filleted anchovy, with lemon juice squeezed over them, a sprinkle of olive oil and parsely, so very simple and absolutely delicious.

Ballooning in Tuscany

2011-09-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

How very nice on a perfect September day, having my morning cuppa, to watch the hot air balloon fly overhead knowing that after all these many past summers of working every morning retrieving the balloon with jeep and trailer, making picnics, being nice to people so early in the day, that I can now either go back to bed or settle down in my studio for a day's painting. It's lovely!

En pleine air

2011-09-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

It's very satisfactory to see a contemporary painter take on the excitement and difficulties of painting landscape and bring that activity back into focus .... and how!

I found this recent photo of David Hockney (now in his seventies, when a lot of people of his age are just slumping in front of the tellie) while having my morning tea and Googling him. This was spurred on by the arrival of an email from the RA to say that they will be putting up a big exhibition next year of these huge works. I take my hat off to him, when I think of the struggles I have just doing small paintings outside. It takes a lot of organisation to work like this and there's nothing more maddening to get to your chosen spot and find you've left the turps behind, or worse, that you forgot the cleaning rags. I can only imagine, and hope, that he has someone to help him lug all that kit out there.

After the calm of the studio, being outdoors has it's problems; flies that continuously fly into your ear and then getting stuck in there, mozzies, annoying people who clamber across a field to come and see you and say, while breathing down your neck "I'm not disturbing you am I?", wind which will blow a wet paint laden canvas into your face or onto the crumbly earth which then sticks to the surface, all sorts of insects clambering into your dobs of paint .... but, despite all of this, it is exciting, on the edge, and it's very addictive this balance of trying to balance things, capture that fleeting moment and keep some sort of control over what you are painting.

This awkward looking photo of me, taken by a fellow painter, is one of those annoying days. My table had been to my right hand side, but badly balanced on a slight, and bumpy, slope ... in the end the whole thing tipped over, chucking turps, white spirit and paint all over the place. I was so anxious to keep on with the painting, that instead of organising myself better, I hurriedly put it up in that annoying, but flat place on my left which meant I had to keep on crossing over my canvas to pick up colour ... very messy. However, thanks to www.charvin-arts.com, I now have a wonderful fold into a box easel, which is pretty stable and works very well for small paintings. I can pick it up (no clutter!) and dash off to paint, knowing that everything is there with it.

Towards autumn

2011-09-02T04:16:00.000-07:00

The weather has suddenly changed to a definite September feeling; cool mornings, hot day and cool again in the evening and with it the light has changed too. I think this is the last painting of summer, after the hottest August I can remember.

Rain in France

2011-08-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

Well, this is how France was in July.

Monte Amiata .... early evening

2011-08-24T04:18:00.000-07:00

It's a hot, hot Tuscan august and I'm obviously not a very good extreme weather person. July in France was very cold and wet, which made it difficult for me to work out of doors and here in Montisi, it's not only far too hot for me, but there are far too many mosquitoes. As I try to swot these whining little beasts away from my tender skin, the paint has been flying everywhere but on the canvas. Despite all of this, I did manage to paint a favourite "motif" of mine, the lovely Monte Amiata, during the cooler moments of a late afternoon.

Sunshine!

2011-07-30T01:15:00.000-07:00

Today is worthy of any Tuscan summer; clear blue skies, swallows and swifts whirling through the skies and everything feels wonderful.

An added joy this morning, was to find the straggly weedy tree that occludes the Prévinquières road sign, has been decorated with pretty hand-made paper flowers. So, out with the still-life paintings and off to work outside "en pleine air" as surely a painter must do in the French countryside.

Where did the summer go?!

2011-07-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, it's almost August! July has been the most unsizzling month I've ever known, even for one who grew up in SW Wales. Landscape painting has been pretty gruelling, so it was nice to just give up and settle down with BBC radio, hot teas, chocolate (maybe a Pernod) and do some small still- life painting.

Today, I'm rewarded by the sun coming out, as though it had comletely forgotten its bad behaviour and now all is well with me and the world. Another bright moment, was our nice neighbour dropping by at midday with a plate of (already cleaned) little fish, which he caught this morning down at the river (they assure me the water's clean!). I floured them straightaway and gently fried them in hot oil ... it made a delicious surprise lunch for us.

Cloud, sun, cloud, sun.

2011-07-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

At least today the sun has decided to come back, even it is hiding throughout the day behind the clouds when it's had enough of warming us up again in SW France.

We started the day with "déjeuner" (in this sense it's breakfast starting at 8.00am) in the next village, which meant sitting down at one of many long tables surrounded by burly, cheery French farmers and eating plates of things I would normally find difficult to eat at any time of day. The menu was "fritons" of duck (all the bits of duck not used to make foie gras and pate ie; legs, neck and wings), which are cooked for 3 hours in a "marmite" on top of the stove. This was followed by "tripoux", two sausagey looking things, which was lamb's stomach tied around goodness knows what tripey things from a calf and cooked in a very delicious sauce. Luckily, there was a very generous amount of red wine on the table to help me cope with this early morning situation. Then we had a very delicate, soft cow's cheese, pudding and coffee and staggered out.

This afternoon, being beautiful, I decided to try and finish the painting I started last week in the rain and I think this is as far as I can go with it. Off now for a walk in the sun (oh the wonderful sun!) with the dog and hoping that outdoor painting will be possible next week.

Rain, rain and yet more rain.

2011-07-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

It's hard to love a country that has nothing but rain and freezing winds day after day in the middle of July, but maybe it's my Welsh background that helps me see on the bright side and cope with it. I did manage to get out and paint (in a state of desperation, that I probably wouldn't get any landscape painting done at all in France) and there were the sublime and beautiful moments, in between wicked rain showers and hiding from the Arctic wind behind a hedge.

I think people were a bit startled to come across three painters on the road, wearing every kind of garment they could find and woolly gloves to boot ... not very cool garb for a normal July. I didn't manage to finish the paintings, because of the final storm of rain which washed the colours off the palette (who says that oil paint and water don't mix?!) Apparently this is some sort of record weather situation, but it makes me think that I would be crazy not have a summer studio in Italy if I want to carry on working "en pleine air".

Another Tour de France sculpture

2011-07-14T02:31:00.001-07:00

This very large bicycle sculpture was definitely enlivened by children playing on it. We stood here in the blazing sun (even if it does look cloudy) to watch a 5 second whizz past, by very, very fast Tour de France bicycles. Good fun though!

Cycling cows

2011-07-13T06:01:00.000-07:00

Driving out to join the main Villefranche de Rouergue road, we both laughed to see these very "simpatici" cow cyclists, obviously placed to cheer on the Tour de France. I'm still not painting yet, what with visitors and trying to get myself signed up in the French system, which is turning out to be so much easier than I had ever imagined. However, my painting kit is now all up together, so no more excuses!

"Bother spring cleaning!"

2011-06-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

Painting has gone out of the window until I get to France at the beginning of July. I'm in an incessant continuum of dusting, sweeping and vacuuming the vast expanses of spider webs accumulated through the winter. Then, to my annoyance, the little wretches immediately weave their webs again around the window frames and beams, but at least they are fresher specimens without the dark dust from wood burning stoves. All this housework activity of mine is because we have decided to put our house on the market and also because, while we are in France, a lovely harpsichordist is coming with her husband to stay in our house. She's coming to stay in Montisi, because of a brilliant harpsichord maker called Bruce Kennedy. He has set up a foundation, in Montisi, so that young harpsichord students can participate in masterclasses (given by musicians at the top of their career) and play original instruments, including the beautiful ones made by Bruce.

http://www.piccolaaccademia.org/content/home.html

Just to clear my head, I did manage to squeeze in a balloon ride and passed right over our valley home and flew over my favourite castle Gallico, built in the 1400's by the Sienese. I tried to tell myself this was work as I'm still trying to finish my series of flying paintings for my February exhibition in London next year.

So, now back to my bucket and mop!

Monte Soratte

2011-06-21T05:19:00.000-07:00

This is another painting of Monte Soratte (or Soracte as it was in the past) and it's a fascinating area.

Here are a few words about it from Wikipedia;
The area was used by the ancient Italic tribes of the area (Sabines, Capenates, Faliscans and Etruscans) for the cult of the God Soranus. Mount Soratte was mentioned by Horace ("vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte?" Carm. i. 9), and Virgil, who stated that Apollo was its guardian deity. In reality it was sacred to Dis Pater and the gods of the lower world.[citation needed]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe mentioned the peak in Italian Journey, his diary of his travels through Italy in 1786–88. He wrote that "Soracte stands out by itself in magnificent solitude. Probably this mountain is made of limestone and belongs to the Apennines."[1]

Civita Castellana

2011-06-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I set off with two artist friends, who know this area of Tuscia very well, to paint. It's a very exciting area, not only full of Faliscan places, which are just as magical as those of their counterparts the Etruscans, but also full of all those lovely motifs that the artists of the 1800's, such as Corot and Turner, painted around there.

Unfortunately, the weather was not kind to us and we battled through winds, rain and storms to work outside; not easy when your easel blows away carrying your canvas with it! Just as the weather turned,I got an urgent message from my husband saying I had to go straight back home, because a hospital appointment that had been booked weeks ago was on for the next day. Good old Italy, no notice at all! ..... so I had to tear myself away and get on a fast train back home.

I've since been working on unfinished ideas from just started canvases, watercolours, pencil sketches and photographs and here's the first one I have managed to resolve.

Poppies

2011-06-10T05:37:00.000-07:00

I've just finished a little oil painting for a fundraising auction, in Michigan, for my little nephew Charlie who is suffering from an aggressive brain stem tumour. All very sad.

http://www.friendsofcharlie.com/

Purple garlic

2011-04-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

L'oignon de Roscoff

2011-04-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

In Britain, we all know Roscoff onions by the sight of a Frenchman with a beret and a bicycle, heavily laden with onions; at least, he still comes to Dorset. Finding them again here in the Villefranche de Rouergue market (disappointingly, without the cycling Frenchman) I discover they are delicious and that they have a very pretty pink tinge under the skin.

Oranges in France

2011-03-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Being used to the delight of Sicilian oranges, I'm finding that the oranges here are very disappointing. These ones in the market promised well, but were nasty and dried up inside. So as not to waste them, I'm painting them!

Umbrella pines

2011-03-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

As it was such a very rainy day on Saturday, I decided to put the finishing touches to this painting that I had worked on out of doors in the Tuscan autumn. I find it very curious how a painting can transport you back to the moment and despite enjoying my time here in France, I suddenly felt unbearably homesick for Tuscany.

L'oignon

2011-03-18T08:15:00.001-07:00

Well, this didn't really work out quite as well as I had hoped. It's tricky working in this small kitchen with it's ever changing light coming in through the window. Then I kept on forgetting it was there and bumping into it as I rushed to turn something down on the stove, while rinsing my paintbrush out in my tea, instead of the White Spirit. So, now I'll put my still-life stuff well out of my path to the sink or the oven ... and not in front of the window.

Who would be a painter!

Old French painting box

2011-03-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

I think I spent my €5 very well on Monday morning when we went to visit an antiques dealer here. At first glance I just couldn't work out what were the knobbly things mixed up with old dirt and leaves in the paintbox I bought. Now that I've dusted things down I now see that they are very early tubes of artist paints for working "en plein air". They each have tiny little labels attached to the top of each little sack of colour with the name of the pigment and I'm assuming that these minute bags are made from some sort of waxed cotton. I've also found one paintbrush (with only a stump left from the original bristles), which has a ferrule made from wrapped silver wire and not from a single piece of metal as in our modern brushes.

As we are reasonably close neighbours of where Toulouse Lautrec lived, I now have a flight of fancy that I have one of his old paintboxes!

Still-life

2011-03-11T04:28:00.000-08:00

Spring is here with beautiful sunny days, but it's still a bit chilly in the valley for me to set off to paint outside and also being very "freddolosa" ( a person who feels the cold) I prefer to be inside the kitchen with the woodburning stove for the moment.

New work

2011-03-07T02:40:00.000-08:00

It's all been a bit cold and wet, here in France, so I've been doing some small still-life subjects. In Italy, I've always loved the thin decorated paper that the winter citrous fruits are wrapped in. Here are the few I brought with me from Italy.

.... and more pigs.

2011-03-01T06:06:00.000-08:00

2011-03-01T05:53:00.000-08:00

We're living a very quiet life here in the Aveyron, after all the social activity we get caught up with in Tuscany. Now's the time for me to get back to children's books and my painting, while we're living here in the quietness of the French countryside. Pigs, still-life and wonderful woodland paths are my present subject matter and I'm just waiting for the present cold spell to turn into warmer springy weather.

Rome

2010-11-23T23:46:00.000-08:00

Rain seems to have infiltrated our lives, our home, our brains for weeks on end and there's no sign of it stopping. Yesterday, gave us the perfect chance to escape it by accompanying Justin and his friend down to Rome for the day and go and see the Cranach exhibition at the Borghese Galleries. The exhibition is a comparison between the Northern Renaissance with their contemporaries in Italy. His saucy girls are not really for me and I kept on being overwhelmed by his Italian contemporaries instead of him. There was a beautiful little Lorenzo Lotto "Judith and Holfernes" on display, which for me, left the Cranach versions looking wooden and naive and it was amazing to find that he and Raphael were contemporaries too. The exhibition was well worth seeing and thought provoking and with the wonderful benefit of being suffused with Roman sunshine for the day.

We finished the day by R taking us to a little known part of Rome tucked away from all the tourists. After walking along busy streets flanked with anonymous sixties buildings, we walked through a Roman arch and into a fairy land of perfect Roman city wall punctuated by towers along a stretch of about a kilometre or so. It was magical, as was the tiny drinking man's bar that R had previously found early this year and we were sent up minute stairs, onto a tiny space overlooking the shop/bar. Wonderful slices of cheeses, cured meats and good Roman bread was passed up to us, along with the most delicious and cheap wine. It was a perfect way to end the day.

"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat ...."

2010-11-16T07:07:00.000-08:00

In the run up for Christmas, I've decided to make some of my paintings available outside my exhibition dates. These small oil paintings on board measure 12cms x 15cms and can be bought with the hand made Florentine frames shown in these photos, or without the frame if preferred. For more information see www.lizgraham-yoollshow.com

2010-10-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

I tried hard to do some sketching this beautiful end of an October afternoon, but the wind was chilling in the extreme. When it comes from the East like this, it's called "tramontana", which means from over the mountains and that's why it picks up so much cold with it .... brrrr! Anyway, since I'm not made of stern enough stuff, I went back via the village bar and had a hot "caffe corretto", which is literally a corrected coffee that has a slug of your preferred liqueur added to it (in my case grappa). Thus warmed up, I decided to drop in and have a look in at the "frantoio", which is the amazing all singing and dancing mechanized olive mill, at La Romita and which is now in full swing with tractors, vans and trucks arriving through the day with crates of wonderful, freshly picked olives. The perfume of the exiting flow of the bright sap green oil is of an intoxicating, mouth watering freshness.

Cats

2010-10-04T06:13:00.000-07:00

I do seem to have painted a lot of cats over the years. I'm mad about most animals, but cats are special, because they always place themselves in just the right position, they seem to choose the best colours to lie on and of course they spend hours sleeping which helps a lot if you want to draw or paint them.

Podere San Giorgio and cypress avenue.

2010-09-21T02:10:00.000-07:00

We used to live in Rapolano Terme and I had several "motifs" there, which I really adored. I heard about having a "motif" from a French friend and it's a fantastic thing for a painter , because you know and love it well and it's always changing from season to season and looks interesting whatever the weather decides to do. It is something that you always enjoy going back to.

Strawstacks

2010-09-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Pagliaio is the Italian name for a strawstack and in this part of Tuscany, you hardly ever see them now. One kind of "pagliaio" had the straw arranged around a long and elegant central pole fixed into the ground and then the straw would be hacked off the sides as needed leaving them looking like an old apple core. The other kind was an untidy rick where the wheat ears were set in the middle of the stack to mature there until the threshing machine came round to deal with it in August. Apparently this was a wonderful way to bring the wheat to maturity and in Rapolano Terme, where we used to live, we loved going down to Zacchei's field when the very old fashioned, noisy, smoking threshing machine arrived all the way from Arezzo. I happened to be there one day when the famous Palio jockey Aceto came along to help with the work and he laughingly mimed riding a horse when I said I knew his face, but couldn't place him. This excellent straw and wheat was just what he wanted for his horses.

Cats

2010-09-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Okay .... well I've always loved drawing cats, not only because they are the most wonderful models who hold their pose for ages while sleeping, but because I'm fascinated by the great ease with which they inhabit their bodies. This watercolour was of a large male cat, who despite being quite feral, had an attraction for being nearby whenever I was drawing or painting.

Passions

2010-09-01T23:42:00.000-07:00

I'm just sorting out past work and thinking about the passions one gets for things. A passion for citrous fruit wrappings came out of a first visit to Napoli and an absolute enchantment with these almost transparent, decorated papers that are wrapped around the fruit. They seem to enhance the brightness of the reds, oranges, yellows and through to sharp greens and give me a feeling of excitement, like Christmas when I was a child.

Exhibition

2010-08-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

I finally got my work finished and framed, and trucked off to Florence for crating, then shipping to England. It's like trying to finish your home work on time and with all the trepidation of whether it will be any good or not.

I'll next see it all when I go to the private view on Sunday the 5th September in Great Dunmow.

www.aubreyartgallery.com

Holiday!

2010-08-08T00:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been amazingly busy trying to get my exhibition work together for my September show and having fun in France, so no time for the blog up until now.

Caravaggio Cat

2010-07-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

I am relishing the life of being in a, deep in the woods, Tuscan valley. Hot summer is really here and life has the pleasant rhythm of getting up at 5.30 accompanied by the crowing and crooning of my two cockerels Spike and Miracle, the warble of the fabulous Golden Oriels, the purring of Nightjars, the burping and croaking of many frogs and the rising of the balloon into the sunlight from the shade of our lawn. In this cool of the day I can wander into my studio in the garden and settle down to my painting. I love it and a day in Rome helped me understand that, at least in this great heat, I am not a city person.

I managed to get to the grand papal city just before the Caravaggio exhibition came to an end and where I was to meet my friends, who had booked a group entry, at the entrance to the Quirinale at 14.30. First I missed the train I had planned to take, then the next one, which had the perfect arrival time, arrived nearly 30 minutes late and stopped at the furthest end of the longest platform. I rushed out to find a taxi, bus or any kind of thing that would get me to the Quirinale on time, but there was only a terrible chaos of too many people outside all over the road and on the street. A feisty old lady wielded a set of crutches against anyone who came near, crying "Non ci lo faccio più!" Eventually I found the right bus, but the wretched machine kept on spitting out my money so I just jumped on. I was right next to the man who checks the tickets and can fine you for not having one ..... aargh! I studiously ignored him, but this managed to help me miss the stop by two and it was a long, sweaty uphill run to the Quirinale where hundreds of people, it seemed, were queuing outside. A very nice man got me in to join my group and then it was the problem for me of being trapped in a darkened gallery with more hundreds of people and I was too hot and very stressed.

So after this dreadful experience, which continued in the same ghastly way for the rest of the day, I was surprised when I was back in the calm of my studio to reclaim in my visual mind the wonderful paintings I had seen there. The transition from darkness to bright light and the clever use of diagonals to create drama is incredible and the realisation also came to me that the head of Holofernes in Judith's hand, may possibly be a self portrait, because as painters we all know that squinty look that comes from painting yourself in a mirror. So as a rather humble homage to the great and wild man, I had a vision to paint my cat with a tonal play on darkness and light. She gave me the perfect subject as she settled down happily on the dog's cushion under the kitchen window, but it was much more difficult to pull off than I had imagined.

Summertime

2010-06-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a whirl; party, party, party and lots of visiting family and friends, so only just enough time to paint in the middle of it all. This is a season of continuous fast change and it's hard to keep up with what's around. Cherries are now just on the way out and there's just enough time in my life to capture them in a few small still life paintings in my studio, where a constant chorus of frogs (in the pond just outside the door) accompany my thoughts.

In the air

2010-05-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of noise around inflating the balloon, what with the fans and the roar of the burner, so it's a gorgeous moment when the ground starts to recede away from the basket and there's silence. Only the slight creaking of the basket, bird song and the croaking of the frogs disturbs the quietness.

We drifted down the valley, then floated up and over Montisi where the balloon started to move at a lick. The wind carried us along at 50 kilometres per hour and we sailed past Castelmuzio, Petroio, Montefollinico and Montepulciano becoming one with the air and the birds. We dropped out of this wind as we descended, landing without even a bump on the other side of Montepulciano. Breathtaking.

2010-05-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

Sun, sun, sun! And with the sun; dreaming cats, drifts of flowers with the first poppies splashing through the fields, little sleepy snakes, lizards, swallows, swifts, bees and the air is filled with the songs of nightingales, golden oriels, warblers, finches, bee eaters and the hoopoe who seems very late in arriving (he must have heard about the rain).

Under the Tuscan Sun?

2010-05-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

This morning I can see a pale glimmer of light filtering through the leaden grey skies and I can only imagine it's sunshine which is a bit of a surprise after weeks and weeks of interminable rain. Since I grew up in South West Wales you'd think I would be used to days of splashing around in solid downpours, but it's not how Tuscan life is supposed to be at this time of year. I like to paint stormy weather, but not when it's low cloud cover that hovers between fog and rain and so I'm still in my studio playing around with still life.

It happens that cats don't like this weather much either and I have a constant miserable mewing and scratching at my glass door until finally I give up and let whoever it is in, which is usually my feisty cat Spazz. Cats and still life don't go together well and after constant battling to keep her off my still life table, I've now given up and allowed her become part of my set up. I like the way her eyes and coat reflect the colours from the surrounding colour, but it's all very difficult when you want to paint the portrait view because they obviously don't hold the pose. In the end, I've managed this with little piles of cat crunch in the right place, endearing little noises, a sketch pad and camera. Next time I'll place a basket in the middle, wait for her to settle down and go to sleep and then that should be so much easier for me to paint. Sleeping cats are best.

Spring!

2010-03-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

My one last hen, Mrs Black is laying again and I found the hoard just the other day. Since the fox attack before Christmas the two remaining cockerels and Mrs Black have taken to the topmost branches of a large oak tree, which is just next to the rather crumbly residence that I made for them some years ago.

I suspected that Mrs Black had been laying her eggs all over the place, but then a few days ago I found these in the old hen house. Thank you Mrs Black! Her eggs are quite different to supermarket ones all having slightly different shades of a neutral colour, but each egg having in common a divinely deep yellow yoke. They are delicious! In early morning I placed one egg on my studio table and seeing the light behind it, I had to paint it. It remains a magical experience for me, this finding of such a bounty in the garden.

Under the Tuscan Sun?

2010-03-13T02:25:00.000-08:00

It's been a wild, cold, snowy week and no Tuscan sun until today. Early Tuesday morning I was excited to see the ground was white, but as it was very wet snow I was sure it wouldn't settle. As the day went on the snow swirled around the house sent by a very strong NE wind and by evening I could hardly walk outside when I went to see if the poor old hens were okay. It felt like being on set for "Scott of the Antartic" and I turned hastily back to the warmth of the house which was pinging with the sound of the telephone going on and off with the electricity. The next morning we found we were in the middle of deep snow and walked up to the village to see what was going on. Trees had fallen across our lane having torn down our phone line on their way down to earth and a car was destroyed in the village with the weight of the snow that had crashed down from a high roof. We trudged through the snow covered street and got to Il Barino to enjoy, not a coffee since there was no current, but a welcome glass of "prosecco" with our friends who swopped their snow stories with us.

"Marzo pazzo" they say here and it is completely crazy this year.

Spazz Cat

2010-02-22T07:43:00.001-08:00

There's nothing more annoying than trying out still-life ideas and finding that the cat has jumped up and started playing around with things. Then I looked up and saw that Spazz was settled and that her thick, beautifully patterned winter coat was rather wonderful with the oranges. Of course, when you want the cat back again, she is reluctant to place herself in that perfect position. The answer is cat crunch! I've been putting down a small handful of the magic cat food down in the middle of the table and "hey presto!" she jumps up and invariably remains for a while, just enough for me to get an idea of her. Anyway, it's fine with oranges, but maybe a bit tricky with sardines.

Poor pig

2010-02-16T22:45:00.000-08:00

I'm just emerging from two weeks out of my studio. One week of a miserable cold (well, who doesn't have one of those in the winter) and another week disposing of my two pigs. Two pigs sound okay, but when they have names (Clubfoot and Ig) it becomes an anguish and a grieving. Farmers should never name their animals and probably don't in these days of mass everything and it's only a novice like me who would do such a silly thing. The curious thing is that after the killing and you deal with the carcass, it becomes something quite different and I am extremely lucky to work with a wonderful cheery man, the local retired butcher nicknamed Pallino, because he as round and as short as little ball. Together, with his brother to help, we decide the cuts of meat, and make sausages, salami, prosciutto, while I go for French patè, terrines and fegatelli (which are little rolls of liver, sprinkled with the dried fennel flowers that grow around our house). I try to waste nothing in honour of my pig; the great rootler of the ground, who loved to find those sunny places to snooze in, who wallowed deep in pools of mud when the summer sun was so hot, who followed me like a dog making funny piggy purring noises of contentment, but never ever exchanged emotions with me as you might expect from a cat or a dog and that's where a pig is different. I am now much freer to get on with my painting and I have some wonderful meat in my freezer, but in memory of my pig I shall never, ever buy industrial pig again.

Big Orange

2010-02-01T03:30:00.000-08:00

....... but it's a small oil painting, just 20cms x 20cms.

Mr & Mrs Cypress

2010-01-31T01:29:00.000-08:00

It's probably a bit silly really, but Robert and I refer to these two cypress trees as Mr and Mrs. However, we have quite different thoughts about them. Robert says the tall thin one is the elegant man with his dumpy little wife on his arm. I see it the other way; Mr Cypress is the fat balding older man (he is definitely smoking a big cigar), whereas the tall elegant one is his new blonde, much younger wife, wearing a tight skirt and trotting along beside him on her very high heels.

Clementines & Syrian Glass

2010-01-29T03:09:00.000-08:00

I'm still amusing myself with small still lives. It's quite chilly here with snow on Monte Amiata, so it's not very conducive to painting outside.

2010-01-25T02:45:00.001-08:00

I thought I would put up one of my most favourite Sienese paintings by Simone Martini. It's of Beato Agostino Novello who started his adult life in the 1300's, as a brilliant young man studying law at Bologna university. Later on he joined the Augustinian order and rose to the position of Prior and finally he retired from all worldly things to become a hermit.

A long time ago I decided a good way to look at this painting, was to compare him to Marvel Comics character Superman, because paintings at this time were designed for a public who couldn't read, but instead they could clearly understand a visual message. They also knew how to read the inherent symbolism within the painted image, that we might find difficult these days to understand. For me, in the central panel you see Beato Agostino as Clark Kent (missing the horn rimmed glasses), while on the side panels he swoops around performing his miracles and saving children from certain death. A real hero.

2010-01-24T05:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, was the perfect bright sparkling day for a drive along the old "pecorile"road to Asciano to have lunch with my friend Giorgia who lives in the heart of the old town. In the past, we collaborated many times to work together on painted walls and ceilings and we were an ideal partnership. She is very tidy and well organised and I'm very messy; she's brilliant at painting lines and preparing stencils of complicated design, whereas I'm better at "tromp l'oiel" and free painting, and we laugh a lot together. Because of this, I've always enjoyed finding things for her that I think she'll enjoy and so I was happy to see that she still had a little painting on her kitchen wall that I'd made for her, on gessoed board with gold leaf and oil paint, of her lovely, funny dog Pece enjoying a Sienese feast.

Having lived so near to Siena for many years, I have continued to enjoy and rediscover Sienese painting of the 1400's. The painters, especially Simone Martini, Lorenzetti, Duccio and Bartolo di Fredi have inspired me to play around with my own visual ideas to do with that period of Sienese painting and suddenly I thought of Pece enjoying a banquet. There are often dark devilish figures in these old paintings and it seemed a perfect subject matter to treat in the Sienese style. The idea came to me on the back of a lovely couple who had come ballooning with us and had chosen to stay in Giorgia's old home, Il Fornacino that she ran as a B&B. I was there the morning that they cheerily rushed around getting things ready for a day out in the local Tuscan counrtyside, with a special picnic planned for some beautiful spot. However, the fools, they had left their car boot wide open. There was an anguished cry from the garden and Giorgia and I rushed out to see what was up. Instead of the happy pair who had, minutes ago, been busying themselves for an outdoor adventure they had been replaced by a dejected man and woman who looked dismally at their open car, watching the empty food wrappers flutter around in the breeze. Pece was nowhere to be seen.

2010-01-20T05:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I had to go and take Robert to pick up his 2CV ( a dear little Monsieur Hulot type French car) from the fantastic Mario Ciacci, who will spend hours putting things right that no other mechanic will touch. So, as my dog Mosca is confined to a lead, because she's damaged her shoulder, and it was also one of those stunningly beautiful days that the sun shines bright and you can see for miles and miles, we decided to take my car half way and walk the rest. After all these weeks of grey and rain, it felt wonderful and I saw many little paintings that I would like to do when the weather warms up. Suddenly a blaze of bright blue caught the corner of my eye and there they were, fruit trees, in a line, painted like ancient Britons. This is something that is becoming rarer and rarer to see, because the generation of "contadini" that relied on using copper sulphate for absolutely everything is disappearing. Old abandoned farmhouses have the ghosts of grape laden pergolas coming from this blue "rame" sprayed through the long gone grapes and onto the stone walls.

I went back there this frosty morning to sketch and take some photos and by chance, the elderly owner of this small plot of land was already there, unloading wood from his trailer. He was a bit surprised that I wanted to paint his blue trees, but was quite happy at my request to come when I want and let myself into his garden to paint. He got very hot doing his work, while I got chillier and chillier staying still and so I decided to leave this for another and hopefully warmer day. The farmer looked up at the gathering clouds of "pecorelle" (little sheep) and forecasts that it will not only warm up, but rain. Well, it is winter after all!

Paintings 1990's

2010-01-16T07:40:00.000-08:00

I've had a good time today finding photos of work I did back in the 1990's (last century!), which I thought I had lost forever since I had completely lost track of them and they were small photographic prints kept in a totally erratic manner in my studio. Apart from looking at early work which I had rather forgotten about, it's lovely to find them again because they are full of wonderful memories. I think it's because a painter, who works "en pleine aire", spends so much time outside, battling the elements and observing everything; the movement of the light, sounds of the birds, flies, insects, frogs, heat, wind and at Villa Cetinale the worry of vipers under the cut hedges where they really loved to go on hot summer days.

Villa Cetinale was a wonderful gift to me. Days and weeks of painting in the front garden, which was filled with the perfume of lemon blossom and scent of cut box hedges. White doves flew around the villa, while Claire's tiny African finches (she'd let them fly free) chirruped away from the statues.

Blogging

2010-01-15T03:32:00.000-08:00

Well, whatever it's called and I'm still playing around with this and trying to find out how it works. We'll see!

2010-01-15T03:25:00.000-08:00

While I think of it, I also so enjoy finding the hen eggs. It always feels like a gift and each one is slightly different in colour, form and tone .... and of course they're delicious!

Chickens

2010-01-15T03:13:00.000-08:00

I love watching my little tribe of hens busying themselves around and about our house, but unfortunately for me and the hens, Mrs Fox ( a slender brown lady) is also keenly observing them. So sadly, one by one, they disappear forever, leaving floating feathers in the breeze.

Spike & Mrs Black continue to survive by sleeping high up in an oak tree, while the ones that trusted my hen coop like Bonnet Hen have been taken off for Mrs Fox's dinner. I suppose this is all the rich cycle of nature and I can't really begrudge the fox for taking what we so wastefully buy in Supermarkets.

2010-01-11T03:22:00.000-08:00

These last few days have been really depressing with too much rain and little light, so staying out of it and drawing cats who are of the same mind as me.

2010-01-07T07:23:00.000-08:00

Another very grey, grey day. So, here's another small still-life to cheer things up.

2010-01-06T02:57:00.000-08:00

This is a dark season and I love the bright colours of the Italian "agrumi"; lemons, oranges and clementines. Come March these fruits will be at an end, but for the moment, I love to paint them.

Winter

2010-01-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

Rain, rain, rain and snow. Floating white flakes falling, layer upon layer and then turning to rain again, such is winter in the bottom of a Tuscan valley.

This is the time to be warm in my studio and paint still life.