Roma

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There’s so much here in this painting!

There’s the trip to Europe with my family, the day walking around Rome with my sweetie and our nibling HLeigh, then the idea and the process of painting it…

In 2017, the year my sister-in-law Vernona turned 50, she organized a trip to Europe. She, my brother Joe and their four kids were doing a grand tour. When my parents signed on, I lobbied my Joe to join them – for at least some of the trip. I had a feeling it could be the last time we got to be in Italy with my dad. As it turns out it was. We savor the time we had there with all of them. And will especially treasure the time with my papa.

The trip included a trip to Rome. Dad wasn’t able to walk much, so one day, Joe, HLeigh and I set out wandering on foot. We made our way across central Rome to the Campo dei Fiori – a square that has a rich and varied history. It was the site for papal excecutions and book burnings centuries ago and has been a daily market for fruits, vegetables and fish since the 1860’s. Now it seems to be more a tourist spot than where Roman citizens do their shopping. The vibe reminded me of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

We had breakfast at a café on the periphery and then took a walk around the square. There were some beautiful displays of produce and flowers amidst the souvenir and scarf vendors. I took photos of the splashes of color wherever I saw it, HLeigh took a drink from one of Rome’s many ever-flowing fountains and we headed on.

The prompt to actually paint it came in the summer of 2020 when “Zinoasis” – a large square painting of zinfandel grapes – sold to someone out of state. I took the painting out of the frame to ship it in a large tube, leaving me a really nice frame that needed art.

I was going to just do a straight painting of it but then on a hike it came to me to paint it through the map of Rome, just as I did the flower stall through the map of Paris several years ago.

The first thing was to figure out what part of the map to use and at what scale. My math head came in handy to figure out the scale of the Paris map painting – 2.7 kilometers, square. And HLeigh’s friend Livia, who is a bona fide native Romana gave me feedback on the section of the map.

Now for the real challenge! I chose to draw and paint it just as I did “Paris” – no contour drawing for the actual shapes. The only pencil lines on my watercolor paper were those of the map. Each plum, tomato and apricot were eye-balled from the map superimposed on the reference image. And I avoided the lines of the map with my brush; no masking fluid!

I do believe this is the most difficult painting I’ve done to date. I had to make each object read as contiguous and three-dimensional, even as each one was painted in separate sections. And those baskets put me through it!

The name of this one follows the lead of “Paris” Rather than call it “Rome,” I decided, when in Rome… call it “Roma.”

A fun bit of synchronicity: the beautiful frame that has been waiting for this painting is made by an Italian company called Roma.

29”x29” – Spring 2021 – Watercolor on paper.