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by Marc Dalessio

Recent Plein Air Paintings (Ireland, Croatia, and Italy)

Plein air painting of Colclough Walled Gardens near Tintern Abbey, Ireland.

Colclough Walled Gardens #1. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

I’ve been moving around a lot and haven’t been posting much, so here are paintings from the last three months. The first few are from the AITO plein air painting festival in Wexford, Ireland. It’s always a great to be back in Wexford and they always find us great spots to paint. I focused on gardens this trip, as subjects to enlarge in the future.

Most of these were already posted on my Instagram feed.

Plein air painting of Colclough Walled Gardens near Tintern Abbey, Ireland.

Colclough Walled Gardens #2. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of the Walled Gardens at Woodstock Arboretum near Inistioge, Ireland.

Walled Garden, Woodstock Arboretum. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of Curracloe Beach, Wexford.

Curracloe Beach Painters in the Rain. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

I left the next three in Ireland for the exhibition and didn’t have a chance to photograph them properly, but here they are in the field:

Plein air painting of Irish cows.

Ballymore Cows. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of boats at Passage East, Ireland.

Boats at Passage East. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of the bank holiday weekend in Wexford, Ireland.

Bank Holiday Weekend in Wexford. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

These next few are from a weekend in Zadar, Croatia where we went for a friend’s wedding:

Plein air painting of the Riva in Zadar, Croatia.

Morning on the Riva, Zadar. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of a cafe in Zadar, Croatia.

Cafe in Zadar. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of the Riva in Zadar, Croatia.

Zadar, the Riva. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

And finally, the paintings below are from the last couple months in Italy. I have a lot of studio work and commissions on the burner, so I haven’t been painting outside all that much.

Plein air painting of a garden scene above Florence, Italy.

Lunch in the Garden, Vicchio di Rimaggio. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of Jory Glazner painting near Vicchio di Rimaggio.

Jory Glazner painting behind the Villa Schneiderf. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of an afternoon at Vicchio di Rimaggio.

Afternoon Tea, Vicchio di Rimaggio. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air landscape painting of the Grand Canal in Venice.

Grand Canal sketch. 35 x 25 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of the Grand Canal from the Accademia in Venice, Italy.

Grand Canal from the Accademia. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

by Marc Dalessio

Two Days in Venice

Rio di San Barnaba painting by Marc Dalessio

Rio di San Barnaba. 35 x 25 cm, oil on panel.

I was in Venice for a  couple days this week to see friends, and I managed to get a few sketches done. Venice is only 3.5 hours from Zagreb and I really should go more often. I’ve been visiting the city for the last 23 years and I still am struck every time I arrive and watch the city function entirely with boats. It is really such a special place.

Plein air painting of the view from the Giudecca in the morning.

Morning on the Giudecca. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air landscape painting of the Rio della Croce canal on the Giudecca in Venice, Italy.

Rio della Croce. 25 x 35 cm, oil on panel.

Plein air painting of the Rio del Ponte Lungo in Venice, Italy by Marc Dalessio.

Rio del Ponte Lungo. 30 x 20 cm, oil on panel.

We stayed on the Giudecca, so most of my paintings were done there. When I’m on a short trip such as this I find it much more productive if I don’t scout around too much. Tourist season is in full swing as well, so the main areas were very crowded for painting with an easel. I started an evening sketch near San Marco but gave up halfway through as the crowd got so thick I couldn’t see my view.

Painting of a sailboat moored in the harbor on San Giorgio, Venice, Italy.

Sailboat, San Giorgio. 20 x 30 cm, oil on panel.

by Marc Dalessio

Landscape Drawings

Something that is not discussed often enough in plein air landscape painting is the importance of landscape drawing.  Looking through books on Corot or Levitan, you will see pencil, chalk, or ink sketches for nearly every painting they did, and a lot of landscape drawings that never became paintings. The Uffizi gallery in Florence has a large collection of landscape drawings. They used to allow people to copy directly from the original drawings for every artist except the major Italian Renaissance painters. I spent hours copying Corot’s landscape drawings as a student.

Landcape drawing of San Gorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy

San Gorgio Maggiore from the Società dei Canottieri, Venice.

Often when I travel I’ll spend the first few days just going around with a sketchbook and pencil to scout out places to paint later. It is obviously much easier to move around, but I also find drawing the landscapes first helps me work out the compositions and also makes it quicker when I paint the subject later, having already done the drawing once.

Landscape drawing of Morocco

A page from my Moroccan Sketchbook. Palm trees in Marrakech and the Fort at Essaouira.

The sketchbooks are also fun to look back over years later as many of the paintings are long gone (or were never painted to begin with).

For larger work I will often do multiple sketches as well as small thumbnails to try to figure out the best balance for the final composition. Since I can’t trust the perspective from photographs, drawings are a much better source for large studio landscapes.

Landscape drawing of Sosta del Papa, Chianti, Tuscany

Sketch for Sosta del Papa (over two pages in my sketchbook).

Landscape drawing of Battersea Power Station, London

Battersea Power Station, London.

My favorite sketchbooks for landscape drawings are the 112 page, 8 x 11 inch Kusnt and Papier hardbound sketchbooks, I usually get them at New York Central Art Supply. I like the paper they use, they’re very durable, and the small amount of pages make the books very light and portable. The pocket-sized, blank-page Moleskines are good too. I use a kneaded eraser, any brand of HB pencil, and a small plastic retractable x-acto knife to sharpen it. Having a long, tapered, insanely sharp pencil lead is the trick to getting drawings to look decent (and lots of practice, of course).

by Marc Dalessio

Old films of de László painting

Still from an old black and white film of de László in Venice (click to go to the clip).

Still from an old black and white film of de László in Venice (click to go to the clip).

My friend Josh showed me this website with old footage of Philip Alexius de László painting from life. Above is a still from a short film showing de László painting a plein air sketch of the (pilfered) horses on the cathedral of St. Marks.

Still from an old film of de László painting a half-length portrait (click to go to the clip).

Still from an old film of de László painting a half-length portrait (click to go to the clip).

 

The second film shows de László painting a half-length portrait. He steps back a lot, but not far enough to really sight-size. Its interesting how much he uses the mahl stick. There is a lot of information on his medium (poppy oil -who would have guessed?), colors, and technique on this page.

The website tells the story of how they got so much footage of de László painting:

In 1926, when de László painted George Eastman, whose portrait by de László is at the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, U.S.A, he was given one of the first motion picture cameras, the Ciné-Kodak model B, introduced in 1925. From then until de László’s death in 1937, the artist, his sons and his studio assistant Mr. Harwood filmed a unique record of his life and work on 16mm film, which was sent to America to be processed. He was filmed painting in his studio at 3 Fitzjohn’s Avenue, with his sitters in his garden and at leisure with his family in many parts of the globe. So many of his patrons with whom he was friends are represented: most notably Lord Devonport, the Duc de Gramont, and Baron Schröder’s family at their home Dell Park. The film also contains unique footage of de László painting a model from Lady Duff-Gordon’s fashion house “Lucile” for the Gaumont British Cinema Company (November 1928) and the bronze horses on the façade of St Mark’s cathedral in Venice (1926) . According to Etherington-Smith and Pilcherin’s The It Girls, Elinor Glyn had been filmed by George Eastman himself while de László was painting her in 1912.

All the surviving film has been transferred to video and more recently onto CDs to preserve it.

The dvd with the footage would be facinating to get a hold of, I’m going to see if I can try to track down a copy.