Wednesday 6 May 2015

#44 / View from the hotel terrace, Tropea, Calabria, Italy




#44 / View from the hotel terrace, Tropea, Calabria, Italy (some point in the 1980's)

This was a fun exercise. I originally painted this scene almost thirty years ago when I must have been around the age of eight, nine or ten in what I remember as my first ‘serious’ lesson in painting from my grandfather whilst on a family holiday to Tropea.
I’ve been on a nostalgia trip and have been remembering the old days and our Italian relatives and my grandfather and the way life used to be.
It was like reaching a hand out to my younger self and attending the class again. Looking again at the colours, remixing them and putting them back afresh on the painting surface – seeing the bit of the painting my grandfather painted and remembering his words and his advice to me.
‘Take a sketchpad everywhere you go’, ‘draw something every day’.

You can download my grandfathers book 'Amateur: A Companion guite to Watercolour' here for free!
 

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