These Hills have eyes, and wet paint.

"The Umbrian Hills"By James Swanson / Traveler Jim M.11" x 14" Oil on CanvasWelcome to Day Three, of this 14 day Travel paint Special Edition of the Artist and the Traveler. This special project needs an special guest, meet our guide Traveler Jim M.! 

In 2007 Jim and his wife Cathy took a 14 day trip to Northern Italy following the trail of PBS travel show host Rick Steves' Italian journey to see the real Italy.

Street scene in Ravenna

On Day three Traveler Jim's traveled through the Veneto and Emilia Romagna regions to Ravenna.  As a tribute to Pavarotti, Karin (their tour guide) bought a CD so we could listen to his music on the bus. (We also listened to some of Giorgio’s Italian music from time to time.)  From the bus, we could see colorful sacks of harvested potatoes, many fields of tobacco, and of course, lots of grapes.

Ravenna's Basilica di San Vitale

Traveler Jim M's Travel journal: On our way through Umbria we were detoured off the main highway by construction and “had” to take the bus through the hills.  Because of the detour, we got to see and appreciate the countryside from a different perspective. 

Brilliant gold inside the Basilica 

 Karin began to tell us about our next stop, Montone and “The Capitan” who runs the hotel.  Since Karin knew that the Captain’s birthday was the next day, she taught us to sing “Happy Birthday to You” in Italian.  Same tune, different words.  “Tutia Guiora a ta”.   As it turned out, we really got our money’s worth out of this song (there were a few other birthdays later in the tour).  Flush with our new linguistic knowledge, we headed for Montone, a small and relatively non-tourist hill town.

Umbrian hills on the way to Montone.
 Jim took this from the bus and I will be working with it.

Artist and Traveler Painting" UmBrain Hills":The Artist is finding it pretty hard to paint and blog, so in the next ones I'll let Traveler Jim M. do most of the talking and I'll shut up and paint. 

Anyway, these are the steps I went through in making this painting. It's pretty much the same process no matter what the subject I paint. Take a look at the earlier blogs if you need more painting explanation. Or contact me here and I'll give you a run through. 
Now on to Ravenna and the Umbrian hills!

Done! 
Details from the painting.

Framed and ready to go.

"The Umbrian Hills"

By James Swanson / Traveler Jim M

11"x14" oil on canvas

Some bus trip Jim and Cathy had so far. Taking in the splendid country as they are really comes through on their site.Take a look when you get a chance. And check out all the trip days left. Maybe even contact the Artist about which photo should be interpreted in oil next. On to day 4!

This is day Three, of this 14 day painting journey of Northern Italy, here are the links to see the rest Venice, to Padua.

Or go to The Artist and the Traveler.org to see them, and many more place and stories. New Travelers and stories are always welcome too! Until next time, Ciao!