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| Jardin de la Louve (pencil on paper 17cm x 17cm) |
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| Jardin de la Louve (oil on board 25cm x 32cm)
This a bit different from recent images that have all been painted in situ. I made a series of small drawings as I wondered around these beautiful gardens full of sculpted shapes grouped together, and used them to create an image in the studio that combines the drawings, memory and imagination.
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| Venasque (oil on board 25cm x 32cm)
The light is getting really good at this time of year for painting outside. The shadows are longer, the light is warmer, and the colours begin to separate after the intense bleached out light of the summer.
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| river at l'Isle sur la Sorgue (oil on board 25cm x 32cm)
This is a problem new to me - painting reflections. The clarity of the water means that in the foreground the bottom of the river is visible, beneath the reflections on the surface. A bit further away and the refractive index of the water means that you see the surface of the water defined by the reflections in it. All of this, of course, changes from one moment to the next. The complexity the constant changes mean that you have to paint freely and condense a lot of information into a few marks. As always with these small paintings, it was made in situ in about an hour and a half.
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| Lagard d'Apt Beech woods (oil on wood15cm x 10cm) |
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| Lagard d'Apt Beech Woods (oil on wood 25cm x 32 cm)
It's been very hot the last few days, 38degrees c, so this morning we went painting up in the hills at a 1000 meters altitude where the air was cool and clear. There is a beautiful beech wood there with raking light and shimmering colours. I was thinking about trying to paint the volume of space under the trees, rather than the trees themselves.
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| pen and ink 26cm x 21cm
Just spent a few days in Paris, and these are some quick drawings I made while wondering around the Quay Branly, the 'new' musueum designed by Jean Nouvelle dedicated to art from Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. I am always drawn to carved masks. The inventiveness with form and texture within the confines of the human face is amazing.
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| Mont Ventoux (oil on wood 25cm x 32cm) |
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| Mont Ventoux (oil on wood 25cm x 32cm)
Painting below Mont Ventoux the other day, almost too beautiful to paint. Not only is the volume of space arching over the mountain so vast and overwhelming, but there is also lavender in the foreground at the absolute peak of its colour intensity. The challenge of getting anything of that down onto a small wooden panel in a couple of hours is absurd, but that's what I have tried to do.
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| Lacoste, evening I (25x32cm, oil on wood) |
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| Lacoste, evening II (25x32cm oil on wood) |
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| Lacoste, evening III (oil on wood 25x32)
I made these three paintings over the course of an evening in Lacoste, just behind the Marquis de Sade's chateau. On the first one I was able to work quite slowly because the light didn't seem to be changing very much. As the sun goes down the light moves very quickly, and I could see the shadows travelling across the ground as I worked. The warm light on the greens makes them start to glow, and things become defined that were invisible a few minutes earlier. It's difficult to get anything down quick enough in a convincing way. The third one took about 20 minutes, but sometimes it's good to paint faster than you can think.
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