Oppedette Hillside

Oppedette Hillside (oil on canvas 50cm x 50cm)

There's a big gap since my last post, but I have been very busy painting!  I have been working in the studio recently reviewing the work that I did outside during the summer, and using that material to make some larger paintings.  The challenge is keeping the image alive and not just a reworking.  The paintings made outside are finished in one quick sitting - these studio paintings are more layered and textured, built up over a number of sessions

Roussillon ochre mine entrance

roussillon ochre mine entrance (watercolour and pencil 18cmx12cm)

Another fast little response to something that interested me.  It's a rickety old gate at the entrance to an abandoned ochre mine.  I am always attracted to improvised structures that feel like sculptures - deliberately made, but the function lost long ago.  And, of course, such a subject is full of potential for interpretation as metaphor.

Villars sketch

Villars (watercolour on paper 18cm x 12cm)

Summer is here, so back painting outside. I have been making lots of very sketches, just 15 minutes or so, not thinking too much, and seeing if anything emerges that might be worth pursuing.  As a bonus, it's fun making a very small investment of time and energy.

Les Bassacs

les bassacs (100cm x 100cm oil on canvas)

This painting is a fabrication - it's made up of a few different sources (principally drawings of the buildings here in Les Bassacs) combined with some colour studies that I had been doing in the studio, exploring the relationships between groups of colours, plus whatever was in my head when I started it.  It's also the offspring of another painting that isn't yet completed.  As sometimes happens, I had started one painting that had elements that I liked, but I didn't know where to go with it.  My solution is often to start another painting to try and resolve the issue of where to go - this is one of those paintings.  Now I will go back to the original and use what I have learned from this one, and so it goes on.  Many of my paintings are interconnected in this way.  As Sol Lewitt said, "the idea becomes the machine that makes the art".

Lily

Lily (oil on canvas 100cm x 100cm)

 

 

I am mostly working on some large landscapes that I started in the autumn, but as a change of scene I have also been working on some side projects, including some paintings of single objects, like this one.

autumn painting

autumn 2014 (oil on wood 32cm x 25cm)

The weather and light has definitely moved into autumn,  with long shadows and warmer colours.  I made this painting just up the road, and then worked some more on it the studio.  At the moment I seem to be loading on more paint, trying to bring some physical presence to small paintings.

Simiane la Rotonde

Simiane la Rotonde (oil on wood 23 x 23)

I have been trying to modify my approach to colour a bit, so at the moment I am not using any earths or mixed greens.  At the same time I am pushing the composition, with a single large shape dominating, and trying to make it work pushing detail out to the periphary.  It was a beautiful day!