10% OFF SALE IN MY ETSY SHOP

Hello!

 As you guys know Mona Lisa corner moved from Menlo Park to SF :)

To celebrate the new location and the new studio there is a sale in my ETSY shop, any painting  

through the 31st of AUGUST with the code  1HAPPYSUMMER.

 Just enter the code at checkout, drop me an email if you want to know more! Thanks!!!

The basket of apples, Cezanne

Our last assignment for the summer painting class was copying still life from a master painting from the past .

After a lot of internet browsing I decided to paint the apple basket of Cezanne. I love the color and the balanced composition . This piece is known for his disjointed perspective, the tilted bottle, the incline of the basket, and the foreshortened lines of the cookies meshing with the lines of the tablecloth.Additionally, the right side of the tabletop is not in the same plane as the left side, as if the image simultaneously reflects two viewpoints.

Here is my painting :

14x18 inches

oil on canvas

Here is the original :

...my bottle is actually more straight than the original!!!:)

Painting with cotton buds:)

Last week of my summer semester at the Academy.
Looking forward to have more time to paint in August, but also sad for the end of this painting class. I really enjoyed it.
If there is something I am never tired of is painting (and my hubby homemade pizza of course!!)

Today we did a still life painting with the pointillism technique using cotton buds.
The best part of this technique is NO BRUSH CLEANING IN THE END :) (happy me!!)
Here is the finished painting:

12x16 inches

oil on canvas

I Love the final result! Looking forward to try to do some portrait with cotton buds:)

Down are some pictures of the work in progress:

Clouds and sunflowers

9x12 inches

oil on canvas

Clouds & Sunflowers

Good morning!

This was a cloudy study I painted last week, I added some hill, my favorite red roof house and 4 sunflowers, lovely !

Cloudy today in Ocean beach, but I dont mind :) plenty of colors in my painting room!

Have a great day everyone!

Don' t forget to check out the last paintings for sale on my etsy shop or my  in my ebay shop :)ciao!!

http://cgi5.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LAURADALLAGATA?ref=si_shop

Umbria, Italy Villa Col delle Noci

11x14 inc

oil on canvas

Villa Col delle Noci, Umbria, Italy

Hello!

Today I decided to paint a beautiful Italian lanscape.

Hopefully I succeed in making it as beautiful as it really is!

This villa is called Col delle Noci. That means  Walnut hill.

All around are walnut trees.

JUST STUNNING!!!

Here are some pictures of the work in progress, enjoy it!

My place.

Happy happy happy!
I had a totally fabulous start of the week :)
A very early run on the beach (before taking the bus to school at 7.15. !) then 7 hours in school and then home again, out for another run with a super active dog!
Falling totally in love with the beach and the ocean.

However I still enjoy more painting hills and green landscape. I feel it closer to me, to my home, to my upbringing and to my memories.

Here is today painting done with a limited color palette:
Ultramarine blu, venetian red, yellow pale ochre, black, white and EXCEPTIONALLY :) a tiny bit of primary yellow for front grass and flowers:)

 11x14 inches

My place

 Una romagnola in California

oil on canvas

I called this painting ME, because it totally me. :) I could live in that house with the red roof :) 

This last painting is California and Romagna mixed in together. 

I found the house picture while browsing Antonella 's picture. ( scusa Anto mi e' morto il pc e sono a corto di foto!!) 

While the landscape is from my amazing watercolor teacher Stephen Curl.

 This the first stage of painting

This is a detail, I love the flowers full of texture .

Home sweet home

Hello hello!
The first Saturday in new home :) grey and cold outside , like all the other days of the week :) but nice, warm, cozy and very colorful inside.
The only problem is that the tiny neck pain I had this morning has transformed into an horrible neck, shoulder, back pain. Plannign to lay down as soon as I am done with the blog:)
 I started my homework for my Monday but I need to finish the colors on my palette so I went for something easy and relaxing.

Here it is, simply sweet :)

8x6 inches

oil on canvas

home sweet home

This painting is already available on my ebay page!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200945203553

 

A postcard from Ireland

Post number 500 !!  :) and 14125 page views :)

Thanks to all my dear friends that have constantly supported me in this fun artistic journey!
Grazie! Thanks you! Dziękuję!
 
First the blog, then art classes and now the Art Academy...
I am loving this journey, every minute of it, every day of it. For as much as I love painting I would not probably be here without my husband, my family and my friends believing in me and telling that I could make it. 

But this blog is not just about my art is also about me, Mona and our trio. Is way to stay closer to my mom (ciao mamma!!!TVTB) to my parents in law  ( cześć Maria and Mirek!!) to my brother in law  (cześć Andrzej!) . We are a pretty spread apart family over here!!!

So, once again thanks for reading me :) I will keep up writing and painting !

12x16 in oil on canvas

Postcard from Ireland

This is the painting of today, a landscape done with my usual limited color palette:
venetian red
ivory black
titanium white
ultramarine blue
yellow ochre pale


 As much as I love sunny and hot places I love Ireland.
There is something about it, the green, the clouds, the people, the accent... that made me fall in love with it.
In this picture I am trying to render the Irish weather and atmosphere that I love so much. Hope you will like it!


(thanks to Stephen for the original picture!!! During the home move my old pc died and I lost all my pictures, VERY SAD EVENT!)

still life with metal

Hello!

Yesterday we painted a metal pot, I was very excited since it was my very first time . We used always the same limited color palette:

white
black
ultramarine blue
yellow ochre pale
terra rosa

here is my painting:

here are some pictures of the painting in progress:

 I am extremely happy with this last painting, also my hubby is loving it! :)

Homework time and adding blue :)

The homework assignment was to create and paint a still life using only the limited color palette :
terra rosa, white, black, yellow ochre pale, ultramarine blue.

Here is my still life, I struggled quite a bit with the shape of the brown vase but in the end I am kind of happy with the result.

  here is the original still life

Still life with limited color palette

I am back!! I survived the move :)
I did, but my old pc did not :(
So on top of being busy with boxes and more boxes and some more boxes I skipped the blog because I was also still learning how to use my new pc.

This is  still life from last Monday at school, is done with a limited color palette.
BLACK
WHITE
YELLOW OCHRE PALE
VENETIAN RED

11x14 inches oil on canvas

STUDY

no blue! the blue is done with black and white, which is grey :) but if you add a bit of yellow you get a kind of light green, that's why the apple has such an unhealthy color ;)

I am learning so much! Loving every single painting class and every homework :)

Here are the pictures of the work in progress:

Still life in black, white and red.

This is the still life painting from last Thursday class, sorry for posting only now but I am sure you know how busy I am with the house move ahead.
We are getting there, few more days of crazy busy mess and we are done! So looking forward to have my painting time back :)

Anyway going back to painting, after having worked with only black and white for a couple of weeks, we are now starting to add some color, here we added to our palette Venetian Red.

11x14 inches oil on canvas

study with black, white and red

In class we could choose between 3 still life set up by the teacher, I was attracted immediately by this one.

My neighbours home

9x12 inches

oil on canvas

Max's home

One week to our move to SF....excited for our new life but at the same time a  bit sad of leaving Menlo Park and this nice neighbourood.

It takes time to feel at home somewhere, making friends, meeting the neighbours, finding your favorite coffee place.

I crossed path with my neighbour many times but we got more close this last month before the move, we had more things in common this last month apart from our friends-dogs, they are moving as well, our same day (!). Destination LA.

Good luck to them for their new LA life and good luck to us for our new SF life!

ONE WEEK TO GO! :)