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Aug 05, 2020
Join me for a video tour of my painting “Painting I Faraglioni, Capri”! Learn why I painted it and what inspired me.
Ciao! Thank you for joining me today. I want to take you on a tour of my painting I Faraglioni, Capri.
There’s a funny story that goes along with it, because I didn’t know what “choppy” meant for sailing. I don’t necessarily spend a lot of time on boats. One of the only ways to see this is charter a boat or take a tour boat to see I Faraglioni.
I knew I wanted to paint this. I had heard a lot about it, and I knew about it from history. When I showed up to the boat, the captain was telling me that there was going to be some weather later in the day so the waters were a tiny bit choppy but no big deal. So I thought “OK great, let’s go. I’m ready to see it!”
I’m a big chicken when it comes to rocking boats. As we got closer to I Farglioni (it took about 30 minutes to get there) the waves got bigger. It was so funny! I could not sketch because the boat was rocking. So I was trying to take as many photos as I could to piece together some sketches later. But while I was doing that, waves were going up over my head and I was totally drenched! However I did get some great photos. I also I spent some time memorizing what the details looked like. A camera cannot encompass the whole scene and it doesn’t show the true color. What I do when I’m there is look at the colors as closely as I can and memorize what goes with what - also the weather, the textures, and all the little details. Even with the choppy water, I still managed to do it! And when I returned to dry land, I did some sketches to cement it into my memory. That is how I put together the composition for this painting.
One of the reasons this fascinates me is the Greeks originally inhabited Capri. They had a myth about theses three rock formations. I believe it was Homer who talked about this being the location where the cyclops threw rocks at Odysseus during his journey. That was actually right here! Another thing the Greeks used to do is light fires on these rocks to make them like a lighthouse so Saylor’s wouldn’t wreck into them at night. I thought that was really interesting.
Moving on to Virgil, an ancient Roman who wrote about I Faraglioni as the place where the sirens lived. Have you read the myth about the sirens luring the sailors onto the rocks with their beautiful song? Well this is where he was talking about!
They’re just beautiful! They are so monumental when you see them, it’s incredible. You can see them from the isle of Capri, but you have to go to the gardens of Augustus to do that. The gardens are really high up on the island, so when you see rock formations, you are looking down on them. To see them like this, you have to actually be in a boat. Or if you are vey brave (and fit) you can walk a tiny staircase down to sea level and there is a tiny café down there where you have a great meal and look right up at them. So those are the ways you can see I Faraglioni for yourselves.
Another interesting thing is that each of the rock formations has its own name. This one is called Saetta. It’s the one closest to Capri. This is the island right here, and this is the rock formation. It’s very interesting because they found the remains of a Roman villa on that one. Some enterprising soul had this as his own personal island and put a villa on it. I just love that!
This one, Stella, is really a famous spot for proposals. People sail through this little arch right here. When you sail through it, it is huge! People sail through it and get engaged. It’s so romantic, of course I wanted to sail through it too.
This last one is Scolpolo. It is the home of a rare blue lizard. The reason its blue is fascinating. With all the blue sky and blue sea, the lizard has to be blue to blend in. Isn’t that cool? Who wouldn’t want to live surrounded by a sea and sky like this?
That is my painting I Faraglioni, Capri!
Thank you for joining me on this tour today! To see more art like this, check out my website. I’ve included the link here.
And to see paintings as I create them, follow me on Instagram and Facebook. It will be great to see you there!
And until next time…
Ciao!
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This means you can use the camera on your phone or tablet and superimpose any piece of art onto a wall inside of your home or business.
To use this feature, Just look for the "Live Preview AR" button when viewing any piece of art on this website!