Painting with olive leaf, rosemary and green earth in Tuscany

I spent September at Villa Lena, an artist residency in the hills of Tuscany. I went with no fixed plan, just the way I always work: find what the land has to offer and make my paint from it.

I couldn't have asked for a better place to do that. The estate has around 2,000 olive trees, and wild rosemary grows all over it. So that's where I started. I foraged the leaves, used them as dyes, then turned them into paint. Olive leaf gave me this beautiful earthy, yellowy green, and rosemary something very similar.

I also had a huge studio, with more space than I'd ever had. That changed everything. I could play with lots of things at once, and for the first time in a while, I wasn't focused on making finished pieces.

I played with pH modifiers, making wood ash water and acidic water to shift the colours. I tested seaweed binders and bioplastics. And I dyed large pieces of fabric to see how the colours worked at scale. One of those became a wall hanging, about four metres long and three metres high, in all the yellows, browns and greens I got from the olive, the rosemary and the pH modifiers. I didn't know it yet, but it would end up as the backdrop to one of the best nights of the residency.

Silver Side, made at Villa Lena with green earth, olive leaf and rosemary.

Green earth and the final paintings

Not every colour came from the estate. I also got hold of green earth, Italy's famous green clay, from a local supplier who sells only Italian natural pigments. It's one of the oldest pigments in painting. The Romans used it at Pompeii, and Renaissance painters used it underneath their flesh tones.

Green earth became the foundation of my two final paintings, layered with the olive leaf and rosemary paint I'd made. They're built up in thin layers of olive, gold and deep brown, with big sweeping curves across the canvas.

They're also a change for me. My recent work has been mostly reds and ambers, from Sumba, Baja and Bali. At Villa Lena, the land gave me greens.

Every artist at Villa Lena leaves a piece behind for the Foundation. I gave Here I Can See Real Olive Trees. The name comes from a line Van Gogh wrote in 1889 while he was painting olive groves. For me, it's about the idea that there's more to things than meets the eye. The residency brought surprises and challenges, and it made me look at what's important and what I want to focus on as I move forward. The painting now lives with the Foundation, and if a guest buys it, the money goes back into supporting the residency.

Here I Can See Real Olive Trees, now in the Villa Lena Foundation collection.

Workshops

I ran two workshops for the guests, called Colour from the Land. I taught them about sourcing, dyeing and making paint, and then we explored expression through the paint: textures, mark making, colour and shape. Mostly, we just had fun with it.

The people

It was an amazing group of people. Al, a musician. Sare, a florist. Asako, a glass blower and painter from Japan. And Avital and Avishai, two artists from Israel, who came as a family with their two children.

We had dinner together every night and talked about being an artist: the highs and the lows, our careers so far. It was so relatable. It felt good to know I'm not the only one going through these things, and it really lifted my spirits.

We'd also bump into each other all day, at breakfast, at lunch, in the studios. We'd check in on each other's work, listen to music someone was making, see what someone had created. Every morning we'd share what we were working on that day and what we were struggling with. It's an emotional, personal journey, and this group really held each other up.

We looked after each other in other ways too. One evening the retainer behind my teeth broke, and I ended up tilted backwards over the kitchen counter while Al cut away the loose metal with his nail clippers.

Then there were the sunsets. Countless of them.

The last night

At the end of the residency, Al did a live performance in the back garden. We built a bamboo frame and hung my olive and rosemary fabric behind his speakers. As the sun set behind it, he played piano and sang, while the guests and artists sat on the stairs with drinks and canapés. It was his piece for the Foundation, and a beautiful collaboration of sound and colour.

Then came the best moment. Avital and Avishai's younger son, David, spoke almost no English, but every morning he'd sing the same song: "Café, café, café, café." Al got him up to sing it live with the music. David made it completely his own, and everyone cheered. It was such a funny, uplifting moment.

What I'm taking with me

The main thing I'm taking away is the spirit of experimentation. I want to keep exploring and challenging my subject matter, to get a deeper understanding of what I'm trying to say as an artist. There's still more to uncover, and I want to push composition, structure and concept further.

Thank you to the Villa Lena Foundation and everyone I shared the month with. Go and follow the artists:

• Al Pagoda, musician (@alpagoda)
• Sare Harvell, florist (@warm.flowers)
• Asako Kawachi, glass blower and painter (@asakokawachi_)
• Avital Cnaani, sculptor and draughtswoman (@avitalcnaani)
• Avishai Platek, painter (@avishaiplatek)