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Isola del Tino, Cinque Terre, Italy

Isola del Tino, Cinque Terre, Italy by Barry John Raybould
Isola del Tino,  Cinque Terre, Italy by Barry John Raybould

Cat. No. 1253 Isola del Tino, Cinque Terre, Italy – 17.3cm x 16.8cm – Oil on Linen

I painted this immediately after a boat trip in the Gulf of Poets in Liguria, Italy. This is a little island just south of the Cinque Terre area. The composition was deliberately simple, since my focus was to capture the brilliant shimmering cool colors in the water, contrasting with the brilliant sunshine on the cliffs. The warm late summer sky formed a neutral warm pink gray for the composition.

Watch this short video to see how I created this composition:

I took a lot of artistic license in this piece, almost bordering on the abstract but still wanting to retain the feeling and atmosphere of the day. You can see the actual scene in this photograph.

reference photo for plein air seascape Cat. No. 1253

The painting has the colors I saw in the water when we drove the boat close to the cliffs and went for a swim. Lovely warm water!

4 comments

    • It is a combination of using the principles of nature, such as the changes you see in colors due to atmospheric perspective, capturing color relationships in the actual scene accurately, and making certain changes to those colors in order to improve the color harmony and create an interesting abstract design. The color you start with in one area determines all the other colors because of these factors. But actually you can start with almost any color. It is the color relationships that matter, not so much the colors themselves.

  • It seems you missed to paint the little mountains in the further way, as well the clouds in the sky, the green grass with small stone near the front right conner before the little island. If you paint completly , it will be more a perspective and fantastice piece.

    • Katherine, this painting is very small (a few inches square). If you add too much detail it will lose its strength. This is the reason why I kept it simple.

      However your suggestions are good ones to consider when scaling this painting up into a larger version which I plan to do someday. Thanks for your comments!

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