Working solely with painting knives and oil paint…no medium. I quite enjoyed this…very messy and I look as messy as the painting, but I really had fun in doing this little painting! I’m getting there…
…a bunch of red onions…
oil on cotton, 20x20cm(7.9×7.9″)
Now that I have the gallery, I have to do more studio painting, since I can’t lock up every day and go painting plein air. I’m having a hard time though, adapting to studio work “in public”. I’ve always preferred working privately in my atelier at home. Now I’m very self conscious and I worry about every stroke when there are eyes on me. I get distracted easily by what is going on outside and by people wandering in and out. I initially thought it wouldn’t bother me too much, but it does. Maybe down the road it will change.
…Two and half pomegranates…
oil on board, 40x40cm (15.7×15.7)
I’ve fallen into the habit of starting something in the atelier/gallery and then get completely distracted, leave it, bring it home and finish it here at night. Like this painting. And it results in not being me. I find the light very different, the atmosphere is different and even my mood is different. Working on the same still life in two different places just doesn’t sit right with me.
This is a very careful little painting, with no interest. If I look at it, I see a painting done by someone who was afraid to PAINT! Which was exactly the case. There is still this fear and uncertainty that has crept into my oil painting, as I’ve mentioned before.
I was never very fascinated by still life before and I still don’t get very excited about it. But there is a certain kind of meditation that creeps into doing a still life. I experienced it here in the barn at night, when I’m alone and painting on the still life…I sort of like the quietude that a still life conveys. Being someone who doesn’t have a “calm” personalty, I discovered that doing a still life is quite therapeutic for me. I think that is what will make a still life work for me…reaching that moment when I can feel my painting’s quietness, but without having it look and feel static. I will post some more still lifes later.
Yes, I’m off to Provence this coming weekend for a crazy painting time with 3 friends for one of three weeks in total.
...africantapestry is off to provence…
sketch in pen and watercolor
Katherine needs no introduction,; if you don’t know about the role she plays in the virtual art world, then shame on you…go and read about her!! And who doesn’t know Robyn and her biggest fan Dermott(or is he??)…? And about Sarah, well I don’t have to say another word, because a professional painter of her standard doesn’t need any introduction!
So there you are, four nutty women off to Provence to paint….mostly paint…and then also feast on Provencal foods…and wines….drive around….get lost….dance to wild music…chat, chat, and chat….laugh, laugh and laugh(we all four have an overly developed sense 0f humor)…swim….cycle… and eveything else one does in Provence?
We’ll be staying in the Vaucluse home of well known painter of Postcards from Provence, Julian Merrow Smith and his wife Ruth Philips, while they will be in England where Ruth will be playing cello at the Garsington festival.
We even have our own blog, Four go painting in Provence and you’re invited to follow us every step of the way on this trip. and Sarah saw to us having our own logo, which you will see on television and on Oprah…oh no, sorry Oprah isn’t any more…oh, well, we’ll probably just get our own show…
…four go painting in provence…
…sketch done by Sarah…
Seriously though, we’re planning on doing a lot of painting…all of us will be doing aquarelle, some gouache, some will do oils(I’m one and I know for sure Sarah is another) and then there will be coloured pencils, charcoal, inks and pens. We will of course leave Provence with cases full of sketches, a lot of plein air paintings and drawings well do in the evenings after the dishes. We will also post regularly on Four go painting in Provence to pin down our daily experiences.
So please drop by and please join us and who knows, our fun might lead to you doing the same in Provence next year. I think we might be in Prague next year…or Sicilia…or Marocco…anyhow, we’ll be somewhere! But for now…move over Cezanne, here come the four mad hatters!
I’ve said this before…if all else fails, paint food. It really works. Whether it is the sensuality of food, or the colours or the health aspect or hunger or satisfaction or all of it together…painting food is a delight. It has been so for ages as you will see further down below. I had some poivrons cornes de boeuf and some pak choy. Both greens which is good practice in the greens once again.
…green peppers…
…pak choy…
…Sketches done in moleskine with rotring pen and watercolour….
When Katherine visited in October, she and her sister and niece came over for dinner on their last night in France. (See both her sites at Travels with a sketchbook and Making a mark – where she has some interesting facts in her latest post on Technorati.)
Apart from the bottle of champagne they brought which we décapitée (beheaded) Napolean style, they brought me this beautiful book too – Boire et Manger, which they bought at Chateau Chenonceau. I have read it from front to back and back to front again. I love symbols and mythology and traditions and of course everything that has to do with food and art and this little book has it all.
It is all about the traditions and symbols showing up in old works of art, throughout the ages; how artists chose to paint certain food and scenes, involving food for their symbolism, to depict the traditions and cultures and habits – in short, life during their time.
I want to share some of it with you. Different examples can be seen at Myfrenchkitchen.
…BOIRE ET MANGER…
.. bacchus adolescente:Le caravage(1596-1597)…
…la chanteuse des rues; édouard manet (1862)…
Cherries – meaning: Passion of Christ, fruit of paradise
…la céne: Jacopo Bassano ( 1546-1548)…
Lamb – meaning: sacrificial victim.
…le jambon: édouard manet (1875-1878)…
Meat ; conserved/dried: ham taken from the porc, signifies gluttony sin.
…scéne de cuisine: Frans Snyders (1630-1640)…
Porc and wild boar: sin of the flesh.
Painting this “fennel salad” yesterday made me realize how easy it is to lose some skills when they are not constantly excercised. Like our bodies, they become soft and flabby, sluggish and lazy and it takes work and discipline to get them back into shape. Such is the state of my current painting skills.
Painting done in watercolour on Fabriano artistico HP extra white, 30x23cm (11.8″x9″)
…fennel, pear and onions…
Not actively painting or drawing for more of two months had a paralyzing impact on my creativity, self confience and hand-eye coordination. I could clearly feel en see it in this little painting above. My wrist feels stiff and my hand feels disconnected from my brain. Or maybe it is the opposite; my hand being too connected to my brain, restricted by reason and not able to take its free course. I clutch my paintbrush in an iron grip and lock my jaw in frowned concentration. I zoom in on details and am afraid of taking risks. I hesitate on choice of colour and paint hesitantly with the tip instead of the stroking the whole brush.
Trying to do a waterscene painting, resulted in a complete catastrophe. It made me think of my professor years ago, who told me in first year graphichs, I couldn’t draw. So, remembering his “cruel-to-be-kind” teaching, I took some cheap pilot black ink and drawing paper and my chair and took off to the river this morning. It was time to once again, heed the professor’s words of years ago and get back to basics. Here is one of the drawings I did by the river this morning.
If interested, the rest can be read and seen over at Watermarks.
…with sticks and stones…
pilot black ink on drawing paper, with natural materials, found on the ground.
…drawing tools…
Yesterday I had a crazy craving for pineapple. I bought whichever ones I could find…the sweet small Victoria pineapple from South Africa, the big fat watery one, produced in Costa Rica, coming from Miami???… and lastly the heavy, juicy one from the Ivory coast. Of course I had to paint them. My light pencil drawing was fine and I started putting in washes. Arriving at the spiky leaves, all went horribly wrong. And from there it on it was downhill all the way. Finally I threw the paintbrush out the door, flew out of my atelier, jammed a cup of coffee together, grabbed a canvas and plastered it with modeling paste and a painting knife. Halfway through the oil painting, and eventually simmered down, I turned to my watercolour and thought I might as well finish it by simply pulling out all the stops, I have nothing to lose. So here is the final messy watercolour….. the oil painting is still drying.
Watercolour on Fabriano artistico HP extra white block, 30,5×45,5cm (12″x18″)
Afterwards I even had some time to put a recipe together…and eat it all. Interested in Pineapple carpaccio with saffron syrup and roasted pinenuts?
Africantapestry 