Painted in February/March, 2025. 18”x24”. Acrylic on stretched canvas. Price $435.00 Cdn. – unframed.
The city of Amalfi lies at the mouth of a deep ravine on Mount Cerreto. Several times a day we would climb the 278 steps from the town centre up to our bed & breakfast looking out over the ocean. Our path wound through a maze of buildings and tunnels, under arches and around buildings, snaking up the mountain with the occasional viewpoint. It was a challenging walk that didn’t seem to slow down the little old Italian ladies who regularly passed us as we made our way up the mountain. As a reference photo, I chose a picture I took of Mitch climbing the stairs to our BnB. This was my final painting for the “cityscape” portion of my acrylic painting course, and I wanted to capture the colour, variation and texture of the old buildings, plus the unusual perspective of a path disappearing into a warren of buildings and tunnels. I also wanted to challenge myself by including a figure in the painting. I’ve struggled with figures in my paintings, specifically making them look like they are part of the painting. If I paint them in too much detail, they don’t look like they fit into the painting, kind of a bad “cut and paste” job. It took time, but I feel that I have gotten closer to the right amount of abstraction, so that Mitch actually looks like he’s part of this cityscape. One of the tricks I used is to give him a shadow that connects him to the street. I like having a figure in this painting to provide context for the steepness of the street and stairs. It also adds a touch of narrative and provides a clear focal point for the painting. This painting brings back a flood of great memories of our trip to Italy.
