Yesterday I did a plein air(sur le motif) painting…on my birthday. It was great. I’m quite happy with it in the sense that I really didn’t fiddle..I gave a first wash, then a second layer thin paint and then the final layer and lastly added fine details and I’m happy it turned out OK.
And THANK you to everybody who sent me good wishes for my birthday…I loved each one!!
…a quiet path…
oil on canvas, 38x46cm
…preparation for plein air, quiet path…
I was dropped off at the market in Bretenoux, about 30 minutes drive from Coin Perdu, early this morning. After doing my market shopping…olives and saucisson and tomatoes and peaches and berries….oh, and salad… I had time left while waiting to be picked up. Took out my sketchbook, walked around, sketched two market scenes and the “eglise”, opposite the market. My ride showed up and I had just enough time to blotch the church. A quaint little town in the department of Lot…see the link above for some nice reading on Bretenoux. But I still prefer the much quieter and rustic Correze where we have our little hide away…
…le marché à Bretenoux – baskets galore…
…colorful umbrellas on a sunny day at the market…
…l’eglise à Bretenoux…
Sunflowers look so easy to paint, but it is everything but easy! One can either paint it too stiff and controlled, depleting it of all character, or it can be painted sloppy, in which case it looks as if you didn’t know what you were doing. I think I fall in the second category. But it sure is fun to paint! Robyn made the remark that sunflowers remind her of happy people. While painting these, even when scraping off and starting over, even when throwing sunflowers 2 out the barn door and picked it up afterwards and finally completed it… I was happy. The colours, the shapes, the smell of the oils, the touch of the sunflowers, the buzzing bee around the paints and flowers, the leaves wilting and drying and taking on shapes of their own….I was happy. Still am.
…sunflowers 2…
oil on canvas, 41x33cm (16,1″x12,9″)
I did struggle a bit with sunflowers 1…he composition gave me trouble and I overworked it completely. It actually had a stage where it was perfect…sort of undone, half finished, a slight background with an attractive unfinished look. And I just had to add a touch here and there, which eventually turned into a completely different painting and I lost that “unfinished” stage forever. Fortunately , there is always the next one.
…sunflowers 1
oil on cotton, 38x46cm (14,9″x18,1″)
Two sketches from today…Two scenes for plein air oil paintings.
In “green hills” I didn’t do well on the dark shadowing under the trees…far too warm and not receding – because I once again didn’t stop when enough is enough and continued fiddling! Just hope I’ll do better in the uocoming oil painting!
…green hills..
…old breadoven…
both sketches in pen and watercolor in watercolor sketchbook, 19x20cm (7,5 “x7,9”)
…until next time…
Ronelle
I had a few things to do in Beaulieu centre ville and after walking up and down in the sun and heat, I sat down at Les Voyageurs for a coffee and cool glass of water and made a quick sketch of the center of town. I will probably sketch much better if I sketch slower and pay more attention, but I can’t sketch slow. I get bored too quick and want to move on. So my sketches will always be quirky. But now I am off for my painting “sur le motif“, as plein air painting is called here in France.
I used pencil, after fumbling through my whole bag for a pen and only found pencil after pencil. I prefer doing architectural sketches with pen.
…Beaulieu Centre ville…
Sketch done in pencil and wash in watercolor sketchbook, 25×15,3cm.
I picked up my plein air painting again and even though the wrist is stiff and unwilling to be free and spontaneous, AND my eye is out, my perspective and composition is askew and the little apple tree stands right smack in the middle where the hill ends…a very bad meeting point and I might just go,out there and redo it tomorrow. But it is STILL wonderful! I realize again how much I love it…and how much I’ve neglected it.
The scene below is beautiful in real life, but doesn’t really work as a painting. As I’ve said before..sometimes a beautiful scene is there to enjoy with the eyes and sometimes an ordinary scene makes for a stunning painting. But it is worth it to go out and paint it all…it helps in deciding on a paintable scene, getting your eye focused for plein air. Painting plein air is SO different than painting from a photograph, in terms of “seeing. and of course, MUCH more gratifying, even if it doesn’t turn out the way one planned…which in fact it never does. Sometimes, the scene changes a bit too. like the scene below. In the painting it looks like there is a large hill to the right of the tree, which in fact, there isn’t. But it looks much better this way than it would without the “hill”. and I am not after realism, so seeing a hille on my painting which doesn’t exist in real life, gives me quite a kick. Makes me feel like I’m very original!
Our area is very green at the moment after the rains. The trees and forests are green, the fields and hills are beautifully green and lush, , there aren’t many colorful wildflowers around, so the world tends to be green, green green. Having all this green in a painting can make one feel a little woozy…
Maybe I’ll do the same scene again, but in some different colors than that which I see in front of me..
…Apple tree…
Plein air painting in oil on linen, 41x33cm (16,10″x12, 10″)…
Africantapestry 