*In the Boboli Palace gardens in Florence, Italy in front of the Fountain of Neptune*

Since 2019, my parents have been living in Geneva, Switzerland. My husband, Wes, and I would like advantage of their hospitality at least once per year while they lived there, but this year was the first year since the pandemic that was possible. During our travels I collected many paintings. In January I participated in the Strada Easel challenge while there, and during this trip I participated in the Pleinairpril challenge. If you’re unfamiliar, both of these are painting challenges that involve creating something everyday. The result is that my trips to Europe created pretty big piles of finished and unfinished paintings of the landscapes that we passed through. I’ve long considered what the best thing to do with those paintings would be, a lot of them I no longer have in my possession, thanks to some wonderful collectors, but I’d love to have the ones I still have displayed and collected in one location where you can see them in person. But since that has not occurred yet, I’ve decided to collect them all here for you to enjoy digitally and at your leisure.

So in chronological order, I give you my Travel gallery from our trip in April 2022. This trip to Switzerland, Italy, Israel, and Jordan was the first of its kind where I actively planned on painting everyday while traveling. This section is dedicated to our time spent in Italy. For the parts of this trip in Israel/Jordan and Switzerland, click here or here, respectively.

After my trip to Israel and Jordan with my mom, Wes joined me in Europe and we headed out for a week in Italy. I did a combination of oil painting and gouache in my sketchbook for this trip, depending on the day. I wanted to take it a little easier with less pressure to have completed paintings, but I was missing the plein air process after so long in my sketchbook.

We started our trip in the Liguria region of Italy. We toured around the Cinque Terre area, staying in the northern most town of Monterosso al Mare. Cinque Terre is a series of seaside towns built on the cliffs and painted in bright colors. The unique city layouts and trails passing between each town as well as a train system makes it very easy to navigate between all five.

*View of Monterosso al Mare and Punta Mesco*

oil on board, $150

At the northern end of Monterosso al Mare, at the base of Punta Mesco, the cliff overlooking the small town, there’s a giant statue of Neptune known as the Giant, or il Gigante. It was damaged during WWII, and during a storm in the 60s. But it’s still a prominent site in the Cique Terre region and we were staying in a home just a few streets away, so I decided to do a quick painting of it on our second morning. I didn’t take many pictures of the actual statue so you’ll have to do a quick google search to see pictures.

*Il Gigante, Monterosso al Mare*

oil on board, $350

Later that day we hiked from Monterosso to the neighboring towns of Vernazza and Corniglia. I had a commission to paint the town of Vernazza and I wanted to get a good study in. The crowds were out in force however since the sun came out and the weather was much nicer so finding a spot off the tiny trails where I wasn’t in the way was very difficult, and I ended up on the side of a view spot. So the number of people who crowded around me was insane. It made for a very stressful plein air painting experience.

Our final days in Cinque Terre were spent hiking more around the area, and visiting the final two towns of Riomaggiore and Manarola. We also hiked up Punta Mesco and had a beautiful wide view of the entire coast. After our final day, we headed inland to Florence via Pisa.

*View from Punta Mesco of Cinque Terre*

oil on canvas, $175

In Florence, I was out of panels and canvas so I had to go back to gouache in my sketchbook for my daily paintings. We toured around the city, seeing many of the famous sites and beautiful art and architecture. Our time in Italy was fun and relaxing. The food and sites are some of my favorites to experience of all the places I have traveled. I would love to go back again someday and get more paintings!

Artist Travels: Liguria & Tuscany

Artist Travels: Switzerland, Part 1

Artist Travels: Israel & Jordan