Certaldo Alto is, as the title suggests, an Italian Hill Town in Tuscany. The ancient architecture is, to our modern eye, charming and beautiful, sitting atop a tall hill. Around every corner we see into the past, romanticizing it to suit our artistic ideas. But life must have been extremely hard – the residents from that era surely had no idea that hundreds of years hence our spoiled selves would be swooning over its beauty!

The techniques employed were not fancy – traditional light to dark, a fair amount of splatter and exaggerated color. I had done a small plein air demo in this village while teaching a workshop in Tuscany. That study was of a different building, but relevant nevertheless, as I painted this studio painting of a scene found “just around the corner”. After all, everything applies to everything!

I'm honored to have had Certaldo Alto selected for publication in Splash 23 (released in July 2022)!