Day 33: Le Cascine
Today is my 33rd birthday, and I got really lucky, it was a beautiful, warm spring day! So I asked myself where I would like to be and paint today. The answer… Le Cascine! The Cascine is an enormous park along the Arno river at the far end of the city and is over a two miles long. It belonged to the Medici family and was primarily used as their hunting grounds. It’s an amazing place and also has a huge market over a mile long on Tuesdays.It’s funny because I only really started going there a little over a year ago when I lived closer to the park. It’s a vast wonderland of nature in the middle of the city and quite incredible. Today I picked this spot to paint because I went to see what this loud schreeching noise was about coming from this direction. Turns out a guy on a bench was attempting (quite unsuccessfully..) to play an oboe. He must have just found it somewhere, picked it up and started to play. It was horrible but funny and interesting at the same time. Then I saw this little cove with the shadows and the light at the end and thought it was just the perfect spot to set up and paint (despite the noise of the screeching oboe..)Lots of people out running, walking their dogs, inline skating and walking stopped to see what I was doing. It was the perfect day to be out doing anything, anything, anything at all. I really had an awesome day!I just realized that today I am 1/3 of the way through the project. In some ways it seems as though I have been doing the project for more than just 33 days, it has already become a part of my everyday life. In other ways I still feel like I am on a steep learning curve, trying to learn about all of the necessary ingredients for a successful painting done in one sitting. I mean, I still feel susceptible to the unpredicitabilty of painting: like depending on the circumstances I may or may not produce a sucessful painting. This leads me to wonder if a painter reaches the point in his/her career where s/he can produce a good painting no matter the circumstances.? I guess there is a lot insdie of that question that this email doesn’t allow for in just one sitting.All in all the project is great and luckily it’s something that I can just take with me wherever I go. I see now how painting could (if one chose to) just be a diary of one’s life. Really paitning could be whatever you choose, as personal or impersonal as the artist wants it to be. I can see how an artist maybe more than other people could have the feeling like the world is my oyster! (what a funny saying) and free to realize anything that we can possibly dream up!To buy this painting for $100 + shipipng, just click here https://kellymedford.com/works/411262To view other paintings from the 100 day project click here https://kellymedford.com/collections/25604You can share this project with a friend by sending them to the blog site www.kellymedford.blogspot.com or they can subscribe to receive the daily email at https://kellymedford.com/email-newsletterThank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter, it’s pretty cool that you’re following the project. Any thoughts, comments, input, ideas are welcome and encouraged. It’s just great knowing you’re out there!You can always email me directly at kellyaskey@gmail.com