Robie Benve Art

"Brick House" 6"x6" Oil on Gesso board Available I tried to paint this house in the German Village in the spring but was not successful. I went back to Schiller Park this week, and tried again, this time on a smaller gesso board, and some miracle happened, because I quite liked the final result. :) Painting en plein air is lovely, I usually prefer natural landscape subjects, but mainly because buildings and structures are quite challenging to paint - for me. When I tried painting homes before I got this inner friction between my natural instinct to paint tightly, and the will to paint loosely, and often what comes out is none of the two. As we say in Italy the result "non e` ne' carne ne' pesce" (it's neither meat nor fish). lol This time I focused on the pattern of ligh and shadow, and I enjoyed painting it! :)

"Over the Rooftops" Oil on panel, 11"x14" I went "big" today. Instead of a 6x6 I painted an 11"x14". After a period of painting on location, this is a studio painting, made from a reference photo that I took this summer Italy, however my strategy has been to paint it like it was a plein air painting, quickly and loosely. This way I avoid painting too tight and I can finish it in a day, despite the bigger size. I feel like it has all the elements I wanted to incorporate, so I am posting it, though I'm not sure if I will retouch some things when I look at it again. Often, after the my eyes get some rest from a piece and I come back later with a fresh look, I see all kinds of things that I did not see while I was  involved in the painting. For reference I used a combination of the two photos below, a landscape in Veneto, the region of Italy where I come from.