Changing Light: Morning in Umbria

Changing Light: Morning in Umbria

Rainy Summer Morning, Umbria
Oil on Linen Panel
11 x 14″
$800 | Available

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This view! I had a day off teaching in Umbria last month and so the first thing I did was grab my gear and head down the valley to paint.

As luck would have it, the rain came in and drizzled at first and then poured and faded away again to a drizzle. I didn’t pack up or even wait it out, I was both so excited and determined to paint this view that I got started painting anyway and accepted whatever the weather would bring.

Anyone who has attempted to paint a landscape knows that the light and shadows are constantly changing and moving. When you get going painting it seems that they are moving even faster than usual and so you have to be mentally prepared and organized for this. “Stay calm, but get it down!” is the motto of the plein air painter. Soak it in and immediately asses  the main idea and most important passages and theme.

I hope that you can see from this painting that I was just in love with the distance of this scene. The blue of the hills as the field goes back and the patchwork design covering them.

There is something so visually exciting and gratifying about that blue that goes back in the distance and how it is punctuated with glowing pink rooftops here in Italy.

Building your visual memory is a huge part of landscape painting since the sun is relentlessly tracking across the sky and therefore changing the light and shadows and overall light effect. Keeping in mind and noting down the lightest lights and shadows right away is critical in holding the structure of the painting together.

On this particular day though, this didn’t even apply. First there was sun and then there wasn’t. Then there was rain and then just dramatic skies and moving clouds. I had to pick a moment and go with it, even when the sun later came out and created dramatic shadows, I stuck with the original plan and carried it out to the best of my ability.