The document is about the author's lifelong love of color that began with a science fair project with their father. They see the world in vivid color and use photo editing software to capture what their memory sees. The author is drawn to places with special light, like Tuscany, where the ochre color of the region comes from the raw and burnt sienna pigments found in the local stone. Tuscany is defined by the ubiquitous ochre color in its buildings, landscapes, and way of life, from the villages and farms dotted across the rolling hills to the elegant architecture and well-preserved medieval and Renaissance structures.

1. 50 Shades of Ochre
A journey through Tuscany

2. A love affair with color
My dad instilled in me both a curiosity of how things work and a
lifelong love of color when he helped me with my very first science fair
project. Together we created a spinning disk with his old Erector set
and a color wheel that helped me explain how white was really the
presence of all color. I was smitten, my dad was probably hoping to
make science interesting to me, but helped create a designer instead.
I see the world in Technicolor, and through the years have been
disappointed that the pictures I brought home from my travels were
never what I remembered seeing. Photo editing software has changed
all that, now I can turn the pictures I have taken into what my memory
truly holds.
Like so many artists, I am drawn again and again to places in the world
that offer special light, that light is a reality that the camera often
does not convey. In the past painters always had the advantage, I now
have my own paint box in my computer that allows me to express what
keeps drawing me back to places like Tuscany and New Mexico.
First my innate curiosity requires that when I travel, I understand why
both the built and natural environment look like they do. It is natural
that indigenous stone was used as a building material, but only when I
return home do I discover that Monte Amiata, the focal point of many
Tuscan landscapes is the source of what we know as “raw sienna” and
“burnt sienna” pigments that are the basis of the ochre look of
Tuscany along with the travertines, marbles and other stones found in
the region

3. where art imitates architecture
Tuscany…where art imitates life

4. Laundry day on the sunny side of the street in Lucca.
Where life is lived behind 1,000 year old walls

5. In the simplicity of the medieval

6. And the elegance of the renaissance

7. Where the formal was born and remains intact

8. Where texture defines

9. Where villas dot the countryside – restored, refined, in ruins or in between

10. And the rolling hills go seemingly into infinity

11. Where the players are selected from central-casting

13. The young and the not-so

14. Some things are all too perfect!

15. The perfect rows

16. The perfect landscapes

17. … a town fortified with a massive, fully intact Renaissance wall is a delight of ochers
from light to dark, from cool to warm, with a range of green trims throughout town.
Cars are not allowed and the bicycle is the chief form of transportation
Lucca

18. Lucca’s Walls

19. Where bicycles rule the streets

22. Even the built-environment seems to disappear into infinity

23. In Italy hot pink is not a “girly”
color and magenta floral
scarves are acceptable
menswear.

24. Pienza purple stands unapologetically next to historic ochre stone walls

27. And ochre reigns day and night

28. And everyday is laundry day

29. Where we try illusively to peer in the windows to catch a glimpse of local life

30. Villages, even Lilliputian ones surround the countryside

31. Every plateau supports a village

32. Or a family farmhouse

33. The Carrera marble pits might lie just above Barga, but
the predominant color in the narrow alleys is ochre.
.

36. Montepulciano

37. The gate into Montepulciano

38. Our own gatekeeper

39. Our timekeeper

40. Etruscan motifs

44. Cinque Terre…more than Ochre

45. Where everything is a little brighter

51. …but the fashionable remain
neutral to let nature and
architecture play the lead.

52. Or ochre

53. Tuscany offers fresh garden produce

54. Charming terra cotta rooftops

55. In the end…
more than anything
The color Ochre
defines Tuscany for
me!