 God's beauty is all around us and my goal as an artist is to capture and interpret that beauty on canvas and to take you the viewer along with me on this painting journey. Hello and welcome to Painting Journeys. My name is Kitty Lynn Klisch and we're going to go on a trip today. At the last few shows we've been traveling through Italy. In fact our last episode we were on the Italian Riviera and this is the photograph of the painting that I had started on the last show. I'd like to show you now the finished painting. It's all completed and framed and I'm very happy with it. It's right here. As you can see I used a lot of pallet knife, a lot of rough, rough strokes and in the in the rocks and in the water. The thing that I want you to understand is that we're way up high on this little pathway. We're going from one town to another in the Cinque Terra area along the Mediterranean, Italian Mediterranean and the only way to go there is by train path or these narrow walkways on the mountains and so we're way up high and I'm looking down on these rocks and the water as it's crashing onto the rocks and that's why we have more of an aerial perspective in our painting today. Now as I told you in the last show we're going to be going on to Assisi. Assisi was a really amazing experience for me because as you can see here I have chosen to paint just a little corner of the area. I mean while I was there so many wonderful things happened to me. It is the birth place, the home of St. Francis of Assisi. His shrine is there and there's just a marvelous town that's on a mountain. It's really beautiful and as I was walking up this cobblestone walkway to go to see more of the town I came across this little corner and I thought it was so unique because here are all the flowers and greenery and yet here's a sign that says garden and the arrow is pointing this way. Now doesn't it away from the flowers, doesn't it make you wonder if this is what the flowers look like, what must the garden look like? That's the question with this painting. So anyway without further ado here I think I better get busy. I'm just working with a regular a regular palette. It has no earth colors on it. I like to work without the earth colors and make my own and as you can see my palette is pretty well. It's been used a long time. My canvas I have taken the liberty of toning with a yellow ochre acrylic so that my drawing is all completely dry on the canvas and I have an idea of where my subjects are all right and my shadow and my light shapes and I did it like this because I wanted you to see what it was like to just mass in a painting rather than drawing. I just massed in the shapes so now we'll start with the oils and I think the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to put this very dark that we see back in here. I want to get that in first so I'll take my palette knife and I'm going to make some green with a little bit of ultramarine blue to darken it and I don't want it too terribly garish and so I'll just add a little bit of red to that. Now kind of gray it down because red's the complement of the green. For those of you that have been watching the show I really thank you for joining me. I've had some people come up and comment that they're enjoying the show and I invite you to go to my website and email me and let me know if you like the show. I am really open to that. Anyway so we're just going to get right in here and put these darks in and after we get those laid in and you notice I'm not going to do this with a lot of fuss. I'm just going to get this dark underpainting underneath here and where I see the darks and it's very dark down in here. After I get going away I will pull the blue greens of these leaves that are around this bright yellow green petunia plant that is coming out of this pot right up here but for now I want to lay in what is behind there and then I can pull the rest of it out. When I went to a CC after visiting the Basilica and walking up the hillside I met a fryer and he was dressed in his robe and sandals and he had the belt. His belt was a rope tied around his waist and I asked him if it was okay if I took a picture of him. He was so gracious and he said sure, sure where would you like me and it was kind of a funny thing because when he sat down because of this he was a big man and when he sat down the way the robe his cassock billowed out he looked just about as wide as he did tall and that was kind of of course I didn't tell him that but I remember that about him and I remember his big smile. He had the most beautiful big smile and later on as I was walking up the road to the I don't know what you call it the street I guess cobblestone pathway and St. Francis is my patron saint and I don't want to go off onto religion with you but I was reading something the other day that I found very interesting that that after 9-11 in San Francisco they had a gun turn in program where if you turned in your gun they gave you some sort of a reward or something like that and so many people turned in their guns right after 9-11 that they were able to make melt all that metal down and make a big statue of St. Francis and when you come into the city it's somewhere in a prominent place in downtown San Francisco and I thought that was really a cool thing. Okay now we have back here we have these bricks and anyway so getting back to my my time in St. Francis I mean in for NSCC I wanted to bring something back for years I've wanted a statue of St. Francis for my backyard you know because he was the patron saint for the animals and the nature and I wanted to make a statue of him or get a statue of him to put back there so I could see him out my kitchen window. Well I'm walking along and I'm checking out all these stores these little shops and of course there's everything in the world you know and I want desperately to get something I'm on a budget as we most most of us are when we're traveling and right now I'm mixing up the stone color for right in here it's taking me a moment to get exactly what I want. Anyway so nope it's a little too green I'm looking at all these shops and then I go past this one and I see through the window this gorgeous tall about three feet tall perfect statue of St. Francis it is gorgeous and I run in and I ask the shopkeeper in my in my English I know no Italian and what there now I've got it can you see the difference you see how that color matches or the other one didn't the other one was too green that's why anyway so I run in there I'm gonna just put this on with a palette knife this is our shadowy part see this knife isn't good though I need a painting knife this is a this is a palette knife and and this is more of a painting knife and the difference is that it's smaller and sharper edges and you can get a nice nicer cleaner look anyway so I go into the shop I asked the fellow how much is that statue reminds me of that song how much is that dog in the window anyway he tells me and I say let me think about it and I walk out of the shop now I'm in a terrible hurry because it's almost I've almost used up all my time and the bus is it is just about ready to leave and I have to be back down this great big hill to catch that bus so anyway I start down and something inside me just said kitty if you don't get that you never will you'll never find anything quite like that again if you don't get it it's a once in a lifetime opportunity you have to get it so I turn around and I run back to the shop and I tell the fellow look I'm in a really big hurry if we can do this really really quick you know so I pull out my credit card and I pay for it and he's trying to be very cooperative and do everything very much in a hurry too and we we do the deal and he gets my address he's going to ship the statue to me and in you know here in where I live and and oh I mean everything is going just fine okay and then I run down the hill and I'm elated I am so happy I'm thrilled I I have my st. Francis and anyway everybody that's with me all congratulate me they're all really happy for me and everything you know so we get back now where we were staying was oh maybe a hundred miles away from a CC so by the time we got back that night to our hotel there was a message at the hotel from my husband saying that he had gotten this strange call from some man that he could not hardly understand in Italy saying something about my credit card well don't you know I had gone off and ran off I guess I should say and left my credit card in within his shop and he was such an honest man that he immediately called my husband and told him about it and so then I had our tour guide call him and he said that we were in the we were going to go to another another site and I the tour guide called him because she spoke Italian and she told him to please you know overnight the card to the new spot where we were going so that was towards the weekend that was on a Friday and the my credit card was the only thing I had for money so I had to borrow money from the tour guide in order to eat this is a true story I'm not kidding but I made it that weekend as you can see I didn't die of hunger and sure enough Monday morning there was my credit card in the mail and then I worried what was you know was this fellow going to be able to ship this huge statue to all the way to America to my home here in Wisconsin and not and it not be ruined hurt I mean I was really worried about that like was he going to pack it okay and and was he going to be careful with it and oh I anyway end of the story is that I got the statue it was in perfect condition in fact it was packed with so much bubble wrap that I don't think I've ever seen not bubble wrap those little those little styrofoam beads it was like when I opened the box it was like it was raining these little styrofoam beads it was just hysterical how many of them were in there I mean he took no chances whatsoever I was so thrilled at what a gracious man he was how hard he tried to get me back my my credit card and how honest he was and what a beautiful job he did with sending me the statue so then I had to worry well now what's my husband gonna think I would you know I didn't really want him to know about this okay you know here I spent all this money and I wanted to tell him in person and you know I mean here the guy calls him up and tells him that not only did I spend all that money but I forgot my card and left it there you know I mean like this is not anything your husband wants to hear so anyway when the statue came my husband liked it and he even suggested that we keep it in the living room rather than putting it outside because it's he says it it won't it won't hold up outside it's too beautiful and it won't weather well so so that was the end of that story but it was exciting while it happened I'll tell you I want to get some of this dark right under here now you notice I just kind of went right over these iron posts right here that are covering this window and the window box and I did that on purpose because later on I will wipe out and put those back in I might I might not have a chance to do that while you're watching but when I take this with me back to my home studio I will be working on that this is my goal right now is to kind of try to get this paint on here and get the darks and the lights I'll come back in and later and make this look more like the plaster they look like bricks that have been a real pale brick and you're seeing this as being very white and that's because it's a photograph it truly was not that color it was not that white it was more this kind of peachy color that I'm making it down in this area here and we do have those shadows in there that will be coming down might switch back over to a brush I if I decide that this isn't looking quite the way I want it to I'll switch back to the brush you know it's just going to a country like Italy when it is has been a dream your whole life that you go there and find your roots is such a life changing experience I don't feel that I've ever felt I've traveled many times many different places I've never felt more connected to a place as I did there and I guess that's because of my Italian blood the fact that my father's people immigrated from Italy so makes a big difference in how you feel about things I guess and it is a beautiful country I found out something interesting the other day from a young Italian girl who her last name ends with I and you know usually you think of Italians their names end with oh and she explained to me she says no if you're from the northern Italy as my relatives were your name ends with I and if you're from the south your name ends with an all and I'm going to watch that very carefully I want to see if that's how that works out if that really works out that way I find that very interesting okay now I think we better get some of this dark up here on there and I'm seeing kind of a grade green it is quite dark there's a great contrast on this painting as we're working our way across the canvas journeying across the canvas you see there is this strong strong darks and very light lights but we have to realize that the photo has you know because it we took this from a photo it has altered the way that we what we see it's really in life was not as dark as it appears on this photo nor are the lights as light as I explained you before there we go I want that nice and smooth there we go and then we're going to put in the flower oh goodness I can't figure what it's called I know that's a flower pot well okay anyway I know that it holds plants sometimes you know I'm so far onto the right side of my brain where I'm just seeing and experiencing it's hard for me to think of the names of objects and I don't worry about that though because that just means I'm really into what I'm doing if I'm not on the left side of my brain the analytical side that gives me answers then I am doing great I'm good okay I kind of like this maybe I'll doll up a little bit of gray there we go okay so here is this planter that's what it's called kitty a planter and it's coming right across here and right down there comes out just a little bit and then that's a little dark right going back in here where it turns I think I'll switch over to a brush let me see here okay I do see some I see some light area I have what's called a wipeout tool and when I see things that I want to take away from in my painting I can just use my wipeout tool and you see this light right up here obviously there is a window there on the that we're seeing through this window and it creates a little bit of light so I'm going to wipe that out and I'm going to come with a brush and put a nice kind of a of a sky color in there there we go and then over here as I look a little closer I'm seeing that this it has a little more of a goldish effect there like that's wood on the inside so we'll put that on there kind of a brown not too dark mixing up I like to make my own browns but just a little bit of that in there and that'll show up that is and I know that's very subtle you may not be able to pick that up on camera but then there's something very dark coming up right here right next to it this is going back like that and this is a little darker here it turns where it turns a corner there and comes down and then we have this kind of a brick pale used brick color that is going across here and that's coming here and here I'm trying to be a little more careful for you so that you can you can have a better idea of where I'm going I feel I'm working a little much a little too much in the abstract and so I'm trying to be a little more careful and give you some of the details that I'm that I see so that you can kind of get a grip on on what we're doing here and we will go back to this brush I think we'll go back into some brown and we will put it over here okay now then this right here is quite dark right in here because that is this is like a window and that's the inside of that window and it's coming down right there and it's a little bit darker right here in behind this pot where this pot is okay now by changing my stroke you know all these strokes are going this way because that's the movement of the stone by changing my stroke I now give you the feeling of a a window and I see that this shape is a little slanted so slanted a little bit let that come in like that there we go there now I do see I do see that there is a take a smaller brush for this there is a blind back here and it's going at an angle okay and I look again and I see that this needs to be raised or lowered right here put this on again this back here now I'm going to come across there and try to make some lines just to give you an idea of what that is going to look like that's not working out too good you know some days it just doesn't pay but you know I think I think that is good for you the viewer to see that artists even experienced artists struggle at times and I am struggling and that's okay I will work out my problems just want that light in there that light is important to me and now I'll take this across again and see if I can make it look any any better I don't know I don't know if that works or not down there this has a really bright little turn right here and is showing the side of that and then down here on the bottom of the window box or the planter is a little bit of a darker shadow that will make that paint come like this I have a ton of paint on here way too much but that's okay we'll just struggle a lot don't give up on me that's good enough that shows that up we'll take another brush here and we'll put some dark underneath this and then we'll have to reinforce this stone again or the brick ledge okay and then over here is kind of a tan color coming down then we have more of the of the brick and it's in the shadow so it's going to be a little darker up here and like I said I'm not worrying about those those posts I'll put those on later just want to get this I think I'll take some of this from here and just bring it over here that works good that way I know I'm I have color harmony sometimes when you paint no matter how hard you try it doesn't turn out quite like you had envisioned and so the best thing to do when that's happening to you is is you know put it away come back another day obviously I can't do that right now because you have joined me and we're taking this journey together and if it's a rough journey then so be it there's a little better I'll grab some of this light and put it down in here I think the brush is much better it's not as thick as the making the paint not as thick and giving us more of the feel of of brick I think that looks a little better much better you know what happens sometimes is I'll be struggling along and about the time that I that I really starts to come together well that'll be the end of the time you know time will be out I only have a have an hour and so it's kind of frustrating because if I want to work and work really good and and and really give you something that you are happy you watched why it's kind of disappointing when I run out of time I see some I'm gonna make that a little darker in there I don't want that sign to be so okay that looks a little bit more like the like the brick we have a little bit more of a feel of brick in there now with those marks there we go and then we still need some some light in here to show that this is if you could have seen this in person it was so beautiful another thing that really moved me about a CC was that everywhere I went there were roses it was just gorgeous these rose gardens it's so pretty you know the the church that houses the shrine for st. Francis was devastated in an earthquake some years ago and our guide told us that people from all around the world sent money to restore the church and the basilica it was just amazing and you could see some of the areas that had been that damaged that they were still had iron bars up because they weren't completely finished with them well I think that I I probably should get this area here covered and where it is cute little sign is it says garden with the arrow pointing the other way I kick such a kick out of that that is cute I did I do want to color this area here in there we go yeah all righty and I think I'm gonna take a different brush now and I'll mix up as I was telling you yesterday I'll mix up some of the the green and the red and make up that nice beautiful kind of a bronzey color maybe it needs a little bit of gold in it today too because that's that sign to me actually looks like bronze so I think I'll make it just a little bit redder and I'm just gonna kind of work that in real quick because I know that we're getting pretty close on time and I do want to get over here to these marvelous little flowers here the that's pretty important to me so there we go we'll just get this in here and you know right now we're pretty much what I'm trying to accomplish on this show is to just sort of give you an idea of where I'm going and what my shapes are and you're probably wondering why in a beautiful city like a CC what I choose to paint just a this little corner this little window in this little corner and it's because like I told you a long time ago on the show I'm not trying to make this a travel log I'm just trying to give you intimate moments of the journey my journey as you and I journey across the canvas and so that's why I don't pick landmarks necessarily I just pick little things that speak to me emotionally that's very important now I'll just take I think what I'll do here I think I'll just take the end of my brush and see if I can't scratch out the words garden it's kind of difficult printing it because it's really old world like with lots of curly cues and it's very very close together I hope you're not hearing this horrible scratching sound that I'm making I don't even know a few folks can view the viewers if you can see this it's not coming up maybe I'll just try going in with a little bit of the black and just try to put that in just a little better for you with a just a little bit of color okay I have that kind of scratched in now just I'll take a small brush and we'll just go into some black now is like I was telling you before my object at this point in the painting is just to give you an idea of where I'm going with this so I'm just doing it rather in a hurry I I want you to be able to see the garden sign so that you can see that that's where it is but the next time you folks see it when you tune in to see the next show you are going to see this all completed and then you'll understand what I've been talking about maybe maybe not there we go I think you can see that that says garden yeah all right now I want to get to the pretty part okay so I'm going to take a brush and I'm going to go into my blue greens I have some beautiful oops we need a little light on that now I'm using a different color of green now I'm using a Viridian green it's very cool I keep all my warm colors on my palette on one side and I keep the others the cool colors on the other side so I'm picking this color up from the the cool side of the palette and I'm just kind of like scumbling them in there we just we don't really need to see detail at this point we just need to know that something's coming something's going to happen in that area that's what we need there and you can see the little the little branches coming out need a smaller brush for that see here little tiny branches are coming out and going across and and down and and there'll be like a little leaf on the end and and I love to make the dancing I call it the dancing brush move when I when I make the leaves and they they just kind of appear by just with a little roll of the brush and just a little I like the way that looks of course I guess you've all figured out by now that I really love thick paint I love to paint this is called a la prima and I believe that's an Italian word very appropriate appropriate for the show I've been thinking what should we do next show the next show I've been wondering where where should we go should we leave Italy or should we do one more one more place in Italy I think the place I would want to go next if we're going to stay in Italy is the Venice Venice was fun and I've got lots of stories to tell you about Venice I think we'll go to Venice and then we'll see now that's a hanging pot right there okay so I'm just blocking it in okay for the location and I'm going to put a little highlight on it so that I can see where that lightest part is that's one of the most important things about a painting is is seeing where where's the light where is the shadow without the light the dark there is no light you always have to remember that I guess it's that way in life too without the dark there is no light anyway now I want to get a nice bright bright green bright yellow beautiful green and I'm taking my darker sap green and I'm mixing it with a cad yellow pale and I'm making a very bright green that's going to be coming out of that pot now I don't know how I got that red on the brush but that's okay that's okay those petunias have the reddish pink in them so that's all right you know see in order to really enjoy it when you're painting you have to lose yourself and let the brush do whatever it wants to do let the brush take you you really when you're painting you're not the master you're not the one that's in control here there's a force much higher much bigger much larger than you that is leading you and is guiding you and you just you're the instrument but you're not the master so you just have fun and do the best you can and when you do that what more could you ask for that's the beauty of being able to paint the beauty of of just to be able to capture on canvas canvas some semblance of what the beautiful nature God has created for us to look at and enjoy I have to tell you on my mailbox this morning a spider that made a beautiful web and because there was so much moisture in the air the web was all covered with little tiny microscopic beads of dew and as the sun hit the spider web it glistened and it looked like the spider web was made of the tiniest most precious little beads silver beads it was gorgeous it sparkled it was so beautiful you know what I did I immediately ran back into the house and grabbed my camera and went out the neighbors probably thought I was crazy because here I am with my camera taking pictures of my old mailbox they probably couldn't see that there was a gorgeous piece of art on the mailbox I don't know sometimes we artists do funny things but that's okay that's okay too trust me it's okay be yourself be who you want to be enjoy enjoy what you do enjoy your life be thankful for what you have it's all about that sort of stuff I don't know I guess I'm feeling a little philosophical today I think traveling to a CC made me see things in a different in a different way made me feel a little more appreciative of all my blessings that I have and I'm able to share that's so important that you share what you've been given and that's what I try to do with my show painting journeys I'm trying to share with you the audience okay now I like that now we got some stuff that happening here now we'll just mix up some I know that we don't have a whole lot of time left so I think I'll just take a little tip of the paper towel here and I think I'll just use that and just wipe out in a few little spots here where I have some little I just said the name of those flowers and doggone and I forgot it already boy petunias that's right petunias what a memory I have I guess so lost in what I'm doing that I completely forget there we go I don't know if this is what happens when your hair turns gray or white or whatever is this what happens you you start forgetting what everything is no I prefer to believe that I live on the right side of my brain and that is not the analytical side as I said before that is the side that makes beautiful beautiful creations and you watch and see what happens here now I'm getting excited I'm getting really excited because this is the fun part making these little flowers pop making these flowers come to life I've been waiting the whole show to show you what's going to happen right now and it's amazing you just twist that brush and dance it around and little tiny flowers appear it's wonderful and you you know I mean I don't know why the sign says the garden is in this direction this is where the garden is it's a hanging garden and it's beautiful the flowers usually grow in clusters so I'm putting some of them together and then I'll come back in and I'll take some light and make a nice pretty lighter color and I think I'll add a little bit of phthalo red rose because I want these to really show up for you there now there's a little grouping of them here and you see that you see what's happening and that fun and working with the thick paint like this it's really yummy you have to be really careful though because you don't want to disturb the paint that's underneath so you just layer it on there there then like this okay okay I think that just put in a few more there maybe a couple up here and I have a real little trail of the flowers that are that are coming down you know I feel so I know I say this almost every show but I can't say it enough I feel so blessed that I have the ability to share my journeys with you the viewer I am so thrilled with that that ability that opportunity okay we'll have a little bit of light coming out here a little light there maybe we'll put a little dark because there's a band holding this guy right there all right and we'll bring this down and up a little bit okay and then we'll come around here and you know I only have a minute or two left I wish I could stay with you longer today I wish that I could just stay here and paint longer of course you probably have some place to go to so here we go this is my little corner in a cc and a beautiful little winding cobblestone narrow street in a cc and it's a little hidden spot was my treasure and it's yours too now I thank you so much for joining me today once again this is Kitty Lynn Klisch with painting journeys please watch for the next show because we're gonna go to Venice okay bye bye for now