I love materials, silk, cotton, canvas. I need to touch them and feel my work in a very sensual way, so that when one of my works is printed, it is never finished. I need to add brushstrokes to complete it, eventually going back again to the computer to make a piece which is missing, and so on, until I am satisfied.

In this way I created LA BUONANOTTE (THE GOODNIGHT), a quilt composed of 63 pieces of artwork. The images created with the computer were printed on different kinds of fabric (silk, canvas, cotton, etc.); then, each one was repainted with oil and all of them were sewn together to form a patchwork.

I started first, by making lots of sketches on paper; looking for the right colors and shapes. I finalized some of these with watercolors on different kinds of paper and tissue. Then, I digitized some of the drawings and started reworking them with an "r" paint system, in this specific case, a Graphic Paint Box. This allowed me to find the look I wanted to obtain, the right textures and atmosphere, in a relatively short period of time.

Then, I decided how many pieces of artwork I would need, to create the quilt. The initial estimate was approximately 50 to 60 single pieces, to be sewn together.

I worked on one or two pieces, each 40cm x 40cm, integrating digitized paintings I had made: signs, textures, 3D elements, and paint directly on the computer. Since the medium is very important and determines the way I work, I printed these first pieces on different materials: 2 types of cotton, 2 canvases, silk.

One of the pieces was very detailed with neutral colors. Except for some brushstrokes here and there. I preferred the image as it appeared on silk. The other image, which is more geometric, and has many overlaid textures, had a better result on cotton and canvas.

I continued creating all the different pieces back at the Paint Box. Often, I went back to draw or paint on paper some elements, or make some oil or watercolor backgrounds, which is sometimes more complex to do with a computer. Other times I would only work on a 3D system, building abstract shapes, mostly with an old iron look, which I transferred on the Paint Box. To get a precise feeling of the overall work, I simulated it on the computer.

I went on painting, assembling, overlaying for quite a long time, and in fact, I ended up with some 100 different pieces of artwork. I printed all of the images on paper and made a first collage on a big panel, correcting colors with traditional oil paint. I chose 40 pieces, and printed some of them twice, in order to have a quilt made of 9 rows, each of 7 pieces.

Back at the Paint Box, I retouched and finished the ones I had chosen. I transferred all the files to a MacG4 and used Photoshop and QuarkXpress to be able to print the images, using an Epson Stylus Color 3000 and an Iris Graphics. I printed directly on canvas, silk and cotton.

When the 63 pieces were ready, I sew the quilt together, then I retouched (or better) finished each piece, using oil colors, so that each one looked different and the work as brilliant as I intended it to be. When the painting was dry, after many days, I lined the quilt with a dark red cloth. Hanging from a bamboo stick, the GOODNIGHT was ready for the Gallery, after 4 months work.