Sunny Day, Provence

Sunny Day, Provence

acrylic on canvas - 18" x 14" - SOLD

Several years ago I discovered a site that offered week-long painting sojourns in Provence  - the dream holiday for a landscape painter, foodie, market-shopper and confirmed francophile. This painting was inspired by a scene near where I stay there, and is one I did last year as a workshop demonstration piece. The workshop was about how to experiment with landscape space and abstraction through simplification of forms. 

Here's to sunshine and spring!

St. Saturnin les Apt - Two 'Plein-Air' Views and their Progressive Stages

Last September I painted this scene, but from the other direction. Because the scene combined landscape 'elements' I like (interesting tree shapes, bushes, a road, a small building, and sky) I decided to paint it again when back there in June, but looking the other way down the lane. Below are the stages, from drawing to finished painting. 

Stage 1 - drawing the scene - liking the level of detail and loose scribbly lines.

Stage 2 - scrubbing in the dark values, not worrying about losing lines and details; liking the notan-like composition 

Stage 3 - adding more colour and middle values; liking the white bits still visible

Stage 4 - have added a lot more green, mixed and straight from the tube, starting to work on refining areas. 

Stage 5 - more colour, more refinement, more painting. 

Finished:  St. Sat Back Street 

14" x 16" - acrylic on canvas paper 

I am happy with the finished painting, but I have to say that I liked some of the earlier stages more. There is something about their 'incompleteness' that suggests spontaneity, or maybe just the potential for artful decision-making. Something to keep in mind while painting in the future, both plein-air and in the studio!!!

I did have a little more time that morning and because I felt the need to not be so careful or controlled, I started another painting of the same view. I think you can see or feel the sense of energy I had in the initial drawing below. 

Then I kept painting.....and then it was lunch! Yeah.

Finished.

Another Theme - Another Variation - Provence Meadow II

                                            3                                              1                                                 2

In May I was plein-air painting here (1) and back in the studio later that day, I painted 2 and 3 based on this particular scene. What had intrigued me about the location was the dappled light through the trees, and the light and dark value pattern on the ground leading back to the dark tree verticals with the light behind. It was a view full of artistic possibilities, and I knew that I would return to it as a subject for further exploration.
After working on several larger canvases this fall I decided to try a larger interpretation of the scene. I began by drawing lines denoting tree shapes and areas to suggest shade and foreground on the white canvas with the intense pencil crayons, then applied water with a brush to soften and obliterate the lines and created a watery effect.  Then I a started to add some acrylic and basically kept painting.

              

As I painted and at the end added more intense pencil lines where I wanted some graphic emphasis - which you may be able to see in the details below.

The finished painting looks like this - and I was pretty happy with it - having achieved a painterly, abstract, loose version of the field. And I love the colour too.

Provence Meadow II

40" x 30"  acrylic on canvas

Bonnieux

I am a day behind in writing these posts......yesterday we went to Bonnieux, a lovely village with wonderful views within the village itself, as well as big landscape views towards the horizon.

                  

I painted a tree - don't ask why I chose that from all the other great possibilities, because I have no answer!  

So here is the view and my interpretation.

                      

In the afternoon I worked on another painting that I really like, of a meadow with this lovely big tree, around the house in Les Bassacs.

     

    

Trees at Les Bassacs

Trees at Les Bassac 

8" x 10" - watercolour on arches paper

More watercolour experimentation, painting wet into wet, and then adding some marks with watercolour pencils.