My paintings | Le mie opere

It took me the whole weekend to relax after the exhibition that took place on Wednesday and Thursday.
You know how anxious I am about my works!

Everything went well, and the event was well organized and pleasant.

I didn’t listen to all the speechs about engineering problems, to tell the truth, I’d rather enjoyed a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with the friends that came to see the exhibition.

I can’t really thank enough who came to see my works, your support means a lot for me.
I met friends I haven’t seen in ages and that was great, I missed you so much.
My students from IED courses came too, thanks a lot!

I met Alessandra Amstici, the daughter of an old friend of my dad, Tullia Cubani.
They are both wonderful artists and made a special artwork for the exhibition, called “The Ogre”, taking inspiration from the terrifying monsters that live deep in the earth and creates earthquakes.
We spend a really nice time with Alessandra, and I’m so happy I had the chance to meet her.
If you want to have a look at their work, please visit their website at www.amstici-showroom.it

"The Ogre" by Alessandra Amstici e Tullia Cubani | "L'orco" di Alessandra Amstici e Tullia Cubani

Alessandro and his assistant Lucio recorded the whole event so I guess I will be able to post a little video on it soon.
I will spare you all the engineering parts, I promise!

Both evenings we enjoyed a glass of wine and some delicious finger food on the terrace, while my sister Elena and her collegue Umberto played and sang.
They have been amazing, my sister’s voice always take my breath away, and it had the same effect on all the people attending the concert!
On Thursday one of the programmers that work for Softing, Marco Francescangeli, joined them playing the sax and he was terribly good too!
Luckily, we have the record of the jam session they did.

The exhibition turned out well, with my artworks put on some special supports my friend Patrizio Alviti made for me, and the long paper roll by Alessandra and Tullia exposed on a black table.
We had a little room reserved for the exhibition.

People were asked to vote for their favourite piece of art, and the choosen artwork was prized by Softing with a donation to the “Associazione Risveglio” (”risveglio” meaning “awakening”).
The association was founded by a dear friend, Francesco Napolitano, to help people with acquired brain injuries and their families.
To have more informations about the association, please visit their website at www.associazionerisveglio.org

My painting “Japanese Landscape” came first, and I had the pleasure to donate the prize to the association.
“The Ogre” had only one vote less than my artwork, so I can say we really shared this success!

It was interesting though, that this painting had more votes that the others I exhibited.
This artwork is the one that came out more easily, and I like it a lot.
I would like to explore more of this kind of suggestions.

I titled it “Japanese Landscape” because it remembered me of the kind of atmosphere you can find in such paintings, even if I wasn’t really thinking of that while painting it.

Japanese Landscape (whole and detail) | Paesaggio giapponese (intero e dettaglio)

Alessandro took some wonderful pics of details of the artworks, and I posted them on the “Paintings” section of the site, along with the new six paintings.

About the title of this post, I have to explain I spent the whole Friday ironing clothes!
I have been so dedicated to work and art last week, Ale and I both ended with no clean or pressed clothes to wear.
So I put away my artist’s hat for a day and I’ve been perfect housewife instead, perfectly pressing our clothes and cleaning the flat a bit, while watching tv!
A really good way to refresh my mind after the tension of being a real artist for two days… And artists need not only canvases and clean brushes, but clean and pressed clothes too!

The invitation to the exhibition / L'invito alla mostra

Friday! A busy and hectic week is almost ended and I’m still overwhelmed by my to-do lists.
From going to the bank to send the last invitations to the exhibition, I feel like a spinning top trying to stay up as long as possible.

The event is almost here and I hope I did everything and didn’t foget something really important.

Like… Painting the artworks! I was sure there was something missing.
I painted three of them, one more is on the go and I have some plans for the fifth one. The sixth – I planned to have six made for the event – is still a mistery.

I printed the invitations for both the event and the exhibition and they are going to be sent by snail mail today.
It is amazing how much time it can take to put together addresses, print labels, put cards in envelopes and so on!
And I still have to buy the stamps and stick them on each envelope! Anybody willing to help?

It took for me a lot of effort to put together this little exhibition, and I really hope people will come and enjoy a pleasant time drinking a glass of wine and looking at the artworks.
Of course I didn’t have to do all the organization alone: Softing organized most of the event.
However, taking the leap into painting again has proved quite hard for me.

I forgot how much I love painting and drawing, after years of neglecting this part of myself.
Since my oil painting days at school, I didn’t do much with my hands.
My creativity was soon transferred on computer work, and put at use in graphic design projects.
I felt that something important was missing, but I didn’t realize exactly what since I found myself happily covered in charcoal during the drawing course I took in London.
I love messing around! Simple as that.

I really don’t know where all this painting and drawing and sketching will lead me. I don’t care much.
In the meantime, I enjoy the process!

My drawing for the new year / Il mio disegno per il nuovo anno

Yesterday it was the first day of the new year – in my personal calendar – and I was overwhelmed by the amount of projects I have to complete and incredibly angry at the whole country that stopped for one month.

I couldn’t accomplish any of my tasks, I tried to run errands but with no success.
The icing on the cake: the art store didn’t receive their canvas supplies yet!
It seems their order just vanished and they don’t know where it is.

I was so stressed, I decided to make a drawing.

I had some ideas about a serie of abstract drawings, and I decided to start right away, because I wasn’t really able to do anything else.
Here you can see the result of my efforts.

It was ages – I guess since elementray school! – I wasn’t using pastels.
Of course, that doesn’t stop me by buying a lot of them anyway.
I really enjoying the process of drawing this abstract subject with pastels.
I love touching the colored surface with my fingers to spread the color on the paper, seeing it sink in the fibers, mixing the different shades to see a new one emerging.
I added some touches with a crayon, one of my favorite Derwent crayons, and I tried a different pastel for the white lines.

I have to work more and more to master the use of pastels and to understand where this kind of drawings can lead me.
This drawing opened a lot of possibilities and it also reached its goal: I calmed down right away, focusing my thought on the color and paper, with no space left for anything else.
That is a really big result, given that I’m constantly trying to focus while my too many thoughts run around in my head like happy children.

Today I plan to go to a bigger art supllies store to buy my canvases and – uhm – more pastels!

Welcome!

Here I am, writing the first post of this new blog and site… That is my personal blog and site, actually!

I decided to use this space to show off my work as an artist, given that my work as a graphic designer will be moved on the new Reingard Design website (now under contruction).

It took me years to realize – to admit – that what I really want to do is following my creative path, even if it is often obscure, misleading, full of low moments and few successes.

In the last 13 or 14 years I directed all my creative energies toward my graphic design job, only to realize that… is not enough!

After a long gap, I took my pencils and brushes again in my hands and went back to the old arts of drawing and painting, along with some other skills as collage, knitting, sewing, embroidering, attempting to use – and eventually blend – all that to create something beautiful.

In this pages, I would like to pour my rambling thoughts about creativity, inspiration, passion, and whatever crosses my mind.

You are welcome to express your opinions and comment on what I write and do!

But first, I have some acknowledges to make.
I want to thank Sam Sekhar for his web developing skills, his suggestions and his patience in following me in the project of this site.
My husband Alessandro is my personal supporter and I couldn’t do anything without him.
I know that my mom, my dad and my sister will always be there for me, even if I can be a quite eccentric daughter and sister to deal with.

The site is constantly changing, so I don’t know what is going to happen next…

That’s all by now… Keep visiting for updates!