Italian Lover

Two Italian Greyhounds rule the roost at the home of a friend on Deer Isle, Maine. They are the men in her life right now....how handsome are they??!!! AND I get a taste of Bella Italia while I paint these handsome men!! This is one of Penny 's men....and I call this painting "Italian Lover".

This is an 8 x 6" casein on canvas mounted on board, that I worked on while I also am working on a casein of a male Corgi.. and another 16 x 20" casein for the 'Shades of Black' series. I find I need to be working on several paintings at the same time, and I go from one piece to the other as glazes dry and the paintings seem to emerge from one stage to the next. This is how I have worked for years....and I don't think I could change my system at this point in my life.

It makes for a messy studio, but a productive one!!

I Miss Italy

I don't know why I feel such a nostalgia for Rome, Italy lately. I spent my teen years there , painting, growing up and wishing I was somewhere else. I still have friends there whom I have somewhat kept in touch with over the years. I so want to go back and revisit it all. This longing has prompted me to start a casein painting of a street in Rome that I remember as if it was yesterday.
The sun shines here, with March winds howling around the studio. Outside the snow is melting. The brook is free of its winter cloak of ice, free to gurgle and skip through the woods, past the barn and past the horses. It is spring here in Maine, but how I long for the warmth of Italian sunshine and an espresso, sipped at a cafe by the Spanish Steps.
So I paint... and maybe I can feel as if I am there...........

I will post the work when it is done..........until then I can dream. can't I?