Painting in Orvieto

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Orvieto, looking north, oil on card, 16 / 14 cm unavailable

Orvieto- looking West, oil on card, 18 / 16 cm unavailable

Orvieto is an amazingly situated city with a stunning Gothic cathedral, all very well preserved or maintained,

I tried to do the sort of tourist painting in the cathedral square that almost seems the raison d'etre for travel, but never really enjoyed it. Better were the fantastic views. The second, Orvieto- looking south,  is a sort of impressionism which isn't, in truth, really my bag. I'm a much meatier, heavier and more expressionist painter, much more interested in lumpiness than light. I've always felt a little self conscious about this, the heaviness in my pictures. I want to make this more of a virtue as it is in, say, Morandi or Courbet.

I may shift the average scale up a bit in future trips.

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29 from Italy

29 from Italy

Absent are four pictures which were sent to Scotland to, perhaps, be sold there.

It's not a bad haul: somehow not quite what I expected to produce, for good or ill.

 I will work more and more in the larger sizes in future.

Over the next few days I'll write more about the specific pictures and places.