Vineyard in Fog Montecarlo Tuscany
- 50 x 70 cm (just under 20 x 28 inches)
- Original Oil Painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas
- Available, unframed [framing is optional]
- Signed lower left corner
- © 2018-2022 Kelly Borsheim
In 2018 in Valleriana in Tuscany, Italy, we were blessed with THREE times the quantity of olives. Instead of the usual one trip to the frantoio (olive press), my landlord and his brother took the harvest THREE times to a frantoio. However, for the third trip, they chose to drive to Montecarlo and crush their olives at their cousin's press, Frantoio Panattoni. I asked if I could go with, never having been to this particular press. Like a bronze foundry, each olive pressing factory is different. And I am a curious one!
We arrived at dusk and chose to wait for our harvest to be pressed into fresh olive oil. In Tuscany, it is sometimes called "green gold." After having my tour of the place, I went outside to explore. The evening had turned foggy and was getting darker. It was the third of December (my anniversary for moving to the place I now call home). I had organized my usual dinner with neighbors to give thanks for their making my life so much better, my delayed Thanksgiving dinner, I suppose.
Anyway, the vineyard next to this olive press was beautiful in the fog. The leaves had mostly weathered away, but some remained in pale golds, some green. I was enchanted and continuing my explorations with my landlord's terrier dog, Gregory da Pisa.
I finally found some time, even after leaving this painting for a wee bit, to finish this charming scene. I am exploring color and always need to learn something new with each artwork that I create. Thus, I chose to paint with only purple, a Venetian red color, and white. The purple was intense, while the red was muted. I was curious about how many subtle cool and warm mixtures I could mix, much of it happened on the canvas as I layered the colors.
I am happy with how this oil painting turned out. Perhaps you will feel the nostalgia and romance in this autumn-to-winter scene. You may buy the original or order prints (message me for the latter if I have not put the prints online yet, please). Thanks so much.
In one of the images here, you will see hung in the background dining room my original oil painting Olives and Oil. See that artwork here.
In another image, you see the figure sculpture Together and Alone in bronze.
And many thanks go to Jane Sulicich from Australia who came to visit with me while she and her husband Mark returned to Valleriana after the Covid virus disaster lessened. She took the photo of the artist with her painting, and several others.