Sunshine Coast Hinterland Times

Phillippa Rhodes reveals her recent visit to Tuscany and her delightful paintings are the outcome of that trip.
I’ve just spent two wonderful months as yet another painter cluttering up the narrow cobbled streets of Tuscan medieval hill towns. We painters just can’t seem to resist the place. We were based in a 16th century monastery-cum-hostel at Centaldo, home of the poet Boccaccio of Decameron fame, amid olive groves and vineyards.  First the sunflowers, next the harvest, then vineyards turning red gold.
Poppies from last year’s trip in spring kept popping into my paintings as well.  Tuscany is also experiencing a terrible drought.  Good for artists, but not farmers.  I’m told 2008 will be a wonderful year for Chianti, given a few years to mature!
Coming from the beautiful Sunshine Coast hinterland, I wondered why I was so excited at the thought of painting outdoors in Tuscany when I rarely do so here.But there is magic in Tuscany that makes one sit uncomfortably, in everyone’s way, in all sorts of weather, trying to capture that magic. 
Buildings, street scenes, nooks and crannies, humble farmhouses, crumbling dwellings are themselves works of art.  Everywhere I looked, man’s activities over the centuries have turned nature into beautiful landscape, not subdued to man’s will, but made an ally.  Of course, in the large modern towns on the sprawl around the ancient towns, one just has to close one’s eyes (drivers excepted!).
These paintings at Enigmas Gallery in Mapleton are my ‘on the spot’ impressions.  If you have been to Tuscany, please come and see if I have captured a little of the Tascany you have seen.