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…
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″)
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″)…
This writing is all about ME. So, if you can’t stand self-indulgence, then you should move on immediately.
I was used to intense birthday celebrations since childhood. Making a fuss of a birthday was a milieu I grew up in. My mom went to a lot of trouble to make it special, to make the birthday boy/girl feel special, whoever it was. She also made her friends feel special. Somehow she felt special too by seeing everybody else feel special. She had a good friend from childhood. They both got married at different stages, had their families and ended up living far away from each other, which resulted in less contact. But they religiously called each other every year on their birthdays until my mother died at 84 years old. And on these birthday calls they chatted away, catching up on the year’s news, and time and distance fell away. Isn’t that special...
…l’orage approche…
oil on canvas, 30x30cm
After leaving home, my birthday celebration years continued. With my family. With a small but close circle of friends. And a few traditions. I have a friend celebrating the same day as mine. Every year on our birthday, Naomi baked(and still does) this incredible black forest cake. Only this one time a year. And it was tradition that I would go over to her house for a quick coffee(before all the visits started) and the two of us would feast on a slice each. With another friend I shared another kind of tradition; I baked her a cake on her birthday and she bake me one on my birthday…I once got a sticky marsh-mellow cake from her and on her birthday she got a giant pink and white cake smothered in rose petals from me. We laughed. This very same friend, Colette, booked an airoplane ticket a few years later to share my 40th birthday with me in South Carolina, US. Isn’t that special…
I had a surprise one year, organized by Mariaan, one crazy, deliciously fun friend. Nobody called me on my birthday that year. It was a strange phenomena. It just didn’t happen. I was always spoiled with phone calls and drop-ins and cards from very early morning on every birthday. That year…nothing! Nada! Except of course for my family living far away. By the evening I was in such a bad state of depression that I decided to leave town the next day, never to return. I would go live with the animals in the bush. On our way out to “dinner” that evening(my last meal in civilization, I decided…), I opened the door and stared into the laughing faces of my whole circle of friends. Each with a huge dish of food and drinks and coloured gifts with huge bows and even huger smiles. We ate and drank and danced, they washed dishes and we kept the neighbourhood up until early hours. Isn’t that special…
Then we left South Africa. Celebrating birthdays changed face very suddenly. The next birthday was only the four of us and our good friends Cecily and family in Felixstowe, who were there for one year. I tried very hard to be original, making us a meal in grandiose style..so many courses, wearing evening attire with french perfumes, sat down to a pristine set table…just to have an over the top, overcooked meal with the dessert literally running off the meringue! But the memory of laughter and jokes and joy of sharing with family and two good friends in a foreign country stays firmly on the plate. Isn’t that special…
Since then, birthdays have been quiet and I’ve been spoiled by my family with love, gifts early morning in bed, breakfasts, and intimate dinners in chateaux, dinners by die fire and a far away call here and there. Isn’t that special…
...le forêt…
oil on canvas, 24x33cm
This week I was surprised with facebook wishes from all over the planet, with Marta being the leader of the pack..starting it off already a day early! I was bowled over by the wishes from people I have just recently met, or never met yet , or only seen photos of, or only exchanged emails with and even people I never thought would care to send me wishes! I received a mail from a friend who is away on holiday in Corsica, who cared enough to take some time from precious sunny days to send me good wishes. I received an international mobile phone call from a good friend in SA who couldn’t reach me at home in Montlouis, who will have a horrendously expensive bill to pay very soon!! There is a gift waiting for me in the mail and by opening it, my house will be strewn with glitter stars and I will find a star on the floor somewhere until next year when her next gift will show up, decorated with glittery stars! After all the quiet years with only my small family here in France and a call here and there from my family and friends far away. Now isn’t that special…!
Maybe you receive a lot of special attention on your special day in the year and might think this is peanuts to the attention you receive! It is possible. Maybe you’re reading here and thinking peeved how lucky I am for you don’t even receive a single note or call! It is possible. Which makes this writing then not so selfindulgent any more. Because at some stage or another, we all have the need to feel special. To have a memory of one day in a year that belonged only to you, a day that you can look back onto and say: “Now wasn’t that special..!”
We are so busy at your mountain home, swinging hammers, knocking out beams, digging trenches for drainage under floors…the closest I can get to being creative , is rubbing Aloe vera hot gel on sore muscles and Arnica on purple bruises. I do take my camera out frequently to record the renovation process and then at the same time quickly dash off to snap an insect or pretty flower or some raindrops.
We have also got highspeed internet now at Coin Perdu and this weekend we cuckooed around the computer as if it were a new born baby with blue eyes! We also have a telephone. Not that I’m excited about that. I hat a telephone. But it does signify that slowly but surely things are progressing at Coin Perdu and we are not alone out here!
…bales of hay…
I did manage to paint the bales of hay that had been cut on our land…an interesting process that fascinated me for the whole two weeks it took to cut the land, air it, roll it and then load it to store for the winter. It gave me a huge kick to know our land was giving back to nature.
…painting it…
When the poppie came into bloom a few weeks ago, I was highly excited. Been counting 365 and a quarter days for them to reappear.
Las year they were spectacular! I spent days with my camera next to these fields, planning to take out the brush and sketchbook next, but before I knew it, there were only a few late bloomers still standing…
Too late for a painting. Too late for a sketch. Next year is after all, another day.
…poppyfields of Vernou, 2008…
Next year showed up.
This time I had my act together. My easel was packed. My tubes were sqeezed. The oil was ready to swirl. Until I came to the poppy fields of last year. Not a poppy in sight! Instead, the wheat fields were covering every square inch as far as the eye could see. I drove around a whole morning in search of poppies to paint, heavily disappointed in myself for not taking an opportunity when it blatantly flashed itself to me!
I finally came upon a few poppies here and there, but nothing close to the spectacular drama I had seen last year. It was nonetheless an opportunity and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice!
…poppie field in Vernou, 2009…
I parked myself in the midst of the wheat field, in bright sun and delighted in capturing the even brighter burst of reds at the end of the field. My painting doesn’t really meet my expectations and I can’t even blame the poppies of 2009! Hopefully there is another year of poppies waiting for me; or even better, many years!
Life gave me a last reminder about opportunities and all those life – talking stuff, when I packed up and wanted to leave. I backed up into a ditch on the narrow farm road and it took me some thirty minutes and some broken and bent taillights connections… and wheely skidding… and exciting vocabulary to get the point.
…la matinée rouge…
oil on canvas, 41x33cm (16″x13″)
…detail: click on image to enlarge…
..
Africantapestry 