Van Gogh "Repetitions"

"The Postman Joseph Roulin"
Vincent van Gogh, 1889

"The Postman Joseph Roulin"
VIncent van Gogh, 1889

Vincent van Gogh seems to have been a recurring theme in my thoughts over the past few months. Ipreviously posted about several "breaking news" items concerning Van Gogh, including the exhibit at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. Here is link to a review of the exhibit from Fine Art Connoisseur, which I wanted to share with you.

The exhibit is focused on Van Gogh's "Repeitions"--scenes that he painted multiple times, each time with subtle variations. I love the idea of studying these repetitions, and I always wonder what makes us revisit the same subject over and over. Is it a desire to explore the subject more deeply? A wish to make a better painting of it than the time before? The realization that the subject is entirely different in a different season, a different light, or different time of day?

I like to paint in series, and yet I often like my very first painting of the series better than the ones that follow. Perhaps it is something about the freshness of the discovery that makes the first painting sing. The excitement of discovery can be an elusive quality for me to recapture in subsequent paintings of the same subject. That's why I like to vary the composition or point of view.

I appreciated what the review said about this. It noted that the degree of spontaneity helped the curators identify which were the first paintings in the series, and which were the repetitions: "The spontaneity found in the [first] painting pointed to its being the first rendition, while the more controlled execution in the Phillip's street scene designates it as the repetition." I hope to visit the exhibition and see for myself.

Abstraction

"Villars from Afar"

8 x 13

One of the painters whose blog I follow is Colin Page. Colin recently posted a painting of an old bicycle, and wrote about how he created some abstraction within a representational painting. It was a wonderful post, and he explained so clearly his thought process and decisions about what to "abstract".

 

One technique Colin wrote about was "lost edges". I have previously posted about this approach in  "Not Too Edgy". The play of lost and found edges makes a painting interesting, and it involves the viewer much more than a perfectly delineated painting. I tried to use lost edges in the village scene shown above. Rather than drawing each roof, I simply chose one color shape for a part of the village, and then broke the lines up with the green of the trees.

Colin also described his use of calligraphic brush strokes in the foreground of his painting. He was looking for an opportunity to use some lyrical lines, and found it in the grasses. That is the same thing I was doing with the foreground of the painting above. There was a large stretch of vineyard in the immediate foreground, and I simply wanted to suggest it by means of bright green brushstrokes, and a few dark strokes for the shadows between the vines. I liked the overall effect, and have posted the painting as the cover photo from my website.

Seeing Light

"On High", 24 x 30
Available at Huff Harrington Fine Art

I recently posted on Impressionism and its emphasis on painting light, in a piece called "What's in the Tube". After posting, I thought about a couple of my own paintings that were illustrations of this approach--capturing the fleeting effects of light.

The top painting is a large one, done in my studio from a plein air study. The warm colors, the hint of sunset in the sky, and the sandy, rocky ground tell you about a moment in time, and a place in time. It is just before sunset, above a perched village in the Luberon (in the south of France).

In contrast, the painting below shows the same subject, and was painted the same day as the first painting, but the light had changed completely. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds and everything was gray. One viewer said "Just because it's cloudy doesn't mean it has to look like the Addams Family lives there!". Point taken. But--I was painting what I saw. (Sorry for the odd angle of this photo).

"On High, Cloudy"

Just to complete the cycle, here is a final painting of the same subject, painted in the middle of the afternoon with the sun out. As you can see, with this Impressionist approach the same scene can be an infinite number of paintings, depending on the time of day, the time of year, and the weather. Stay tuned for more examples!

"On High, Sunny Afternoon"
5.5 x 10.5, Oil on Canvas

Who Needs Clothes?

Time to head home from Paris. This is my suitcase at the beginning of packing. As you can see, the easel goes in first! On top of this go a big shipping tube with rolled canvas in it, then my paints, brushes and smaller apparatus. With little room to spare, I have learned to pack very lightly when it comes to clothing. I could probably get by with one small carry on for a trip around the world--if it weren't for the easel and paints!

For some serious advice about traveling with paints, Lori Putnam has a great post on the Oil Painters of America blog. Good basic info, and some nifty tips. Bon Voyage!

Drawing at the Musee d'Orsay

My friend Marie and I had another drawing session last week--this time at the Musee d'Orsay. Unbeknownst to me, Marie snapped this photo. It shows me working on a "blind contour" of the sculpture. I was inspired to work on blind contours by reading "The Natural Way to Draw", by Kimon Nicolaides. In a blind contour, you look only at the subject, and you move your pencil along with your eye, as your eye travels the contours of the subject. No looking down at the paper!

The idea of working on blind contours is to let your pencil point "become" your eye. It is also intended to help involve your sense of touch in your drawing. As your eye travels the contours of the subject, you imagine touching those contours, and you try to be guided more by the sense of touch than by sight.

Let's just say that I can get some very "interesting" results...and not the sort that one wants to publish on one's blog! But I take heart--as Nicolaides says, "Don't worry if your studies do not look like anything else called a drawing that you have ever seen. You should not care what your work looks like as long as you spend your time trying." It's all a process...

Cafes of Paris

"La Source" cafe, Paris
(c) Lesley Powell 2013

Ever since arriving in Paris, I have been suffering "cafe envy". I walk by and hear the clatter of the dishware, the chatter of voices, the smells of coffee and coissants--and I long to be sitting right there myself with friends. My favorite cafes are located on corners, with generous awnings wrapping around the intersection.

This cafe, La Source, is one I walk past every day. I checked out the light conditions at various times of day, and decided it was a morning motif. When we finally got a sunny morning, I rushed out to try to capture the scene. Here I am loaded with my gear on the way out the door:

This was a moment when I could really appreciate the benefit of painting en plein air. I could see the sweep of the sun as it washed the side of the building. The shadows were so cool. The dappled light on the red awning so fast-changing. I could never have gotten this from a photo! I even found a spot to stand that did not interfere with pedestrian traffic or draw attention from passers-by.

Stay tuned for the "reveal" of the final painting...

Sketching at the Louvre

At the Louvre

Who needs models when you can draw from sculptures like these?? We had another rainy day, and my friend Marie and I met at the Louvre to sketch in the sculpture galleries. What a humbling experience! Drawing is, for me, a discipline that requires constant attention. I crumpled up several very expensive pieces of paper (frustration!), and resolved to devote more time to my drawing skills (hope!). 

I stayed at the Louvre all day. Sketching got harder as the day wore on, partly because I was growing tired, and partly because the museum was growing crowded. It was like trying to concentrate in the middle of Grand Central Station, with lots of curious on-lookers. Still, I ended up with one or two interesting things that will make the trip home. I particularly liked this sketch of the funerary lion (above), which is from classical Athens, and dates from 350 BC. 

Room with a View

One brief moment of sun. I knew there was not enough time to get outside and set up my easel before the clouds covered the sun again, so I quickly set up in front of the kitchen window. Sometimes having extreme time limitations can serve me well--it definitely prevents over-working the painting. 

The focal point of this painting is not the Eiffel Tower, but rather the rooftops and chimneys between my window and the Tower. I consider it a victory for the little guy when the nondescript part of the scene steals the show. 'Tis twists like that that make a painting especially interesting...

The Overcast Day: "Gray Par-ee"

One of the challenges of plein air painting is dealing with a completely overcast day. Or series of days, as I have experienced in Paris recently. I have adopted the approach shared by a professional fine art photographer: always assume that the conditions of the moment are the best ones you are going to have. Well, if you look at it that way--at least it was not actually raining! So off I went.

The problem with the overcast day is that it tends to flatten everything. The buildings do not have a light side and a dark side to help define their dimensionality. And there are no cast shadows to anchor and reinforce the shapes. Not to mention that the colors all tend to be a version of gray.

On the bright side (pun intended), the great benefit of the overcast day is that the light conditions are NOT constantly changing. There is a fairly constant, albeit scant, source of illumination. That means you don't have to hurry as much, because the light and shadows are not changing moment to moment.

One approach that can be successful in overcast conditions is to paint a distant cityscape in a sort of silhouette fashion. Sometimes the subtle shifts in grays can make for a lovely monochromatic painting. In this particular session, I tried a variation on that approach. I chose a distant skyline (of the Ile de la Cite), and pushed the grays around a bit to get the right color relationships. Here's how things stood when I called it a day. Fellow painters who may have suggestions for dealing with low, overcast conditions, please send your thoughts!

Along the Seine

The sun finally made an appearance, and my painting colleague, Marie Sand, suggested that we head to the Berges de Seine (banks of the Seine). I met Marie at a workshop several years ago, and we struck up a friendship and have stayed in touch. She is a very talented artist, and you can see her wonderful paintings and drawings here.

Marie and I chose the location pictured above, because it allowed us to get out over the river a bit and to have a water-level view of the bridges. Marie chose to paint Pont Alexandre III, and I turned the opposite way to paint Pont d'Alma. Here is Marie setting up:

Marie Sand

At first we had a little interference from the guards who monitor the area. I was very thankful to be with a charming Parisian, who could reassure the guards that we would not get in the way of other visitors, and that we would not allow toxic fumes from the paints to spoil the atmosphere!

So far so good. I was working diligently on my painting when I suffered a strong dizzy spell. I had to grab the chair next to me to keep from falling over. Just when I thought the dizziness had passed, it happened again. Imagine my surprise when I (finally) realized that my vertigo was due to the fact that we were standing on a floating barge--not a fixed pier, as I had thought. Yikes. No wonder the waves of the passing boats were rocking my foundation! I had to move to solid ground in the middle of my painting--a change of location, yes, but I could still see the same view. Thankfully I headed off the vertigo, and was able to complete the painting.  

I did not originally intend to include the boats (Bateaux Mouches) in my painting. But I fell prey to one of the oldest pitfalls of the plein air painter: I listened to the guard when he told me I MUST include the boats, it would not be Pont de l'Alma without them! When Marie and I ended our session and had a short critique, we both agreed that the boats weakened my painting, so I removed them after I got back home. Here is the painting as it currently stands. (Sorry I can't crop the photo with my temporary set up here--but you can see where I lined off the canvas at the bottom when I composed my painting). Stay tuned for future painting adventures in Paris!

"Pont de l'Alma"

8 x 14

Don't Tell the Landlord

My Bedroom, Paris
Photo (c) Lesley Powell

It has been so overcast and dark in Paris that I have not been outside painting again since my maiden voyage. But---I carried my paints and gear all the way across the Atlantic, so I am not to be deterred! A rainy morning seemed just the right moment for painting an interior.

The top photo shows my bedroom in my rental flat. It is simple, but very Continental in feel. (Don't tell the landlord that I was using oil paints in the apartment). I found a way to set up my easel in the bathroom and peer into the bedroom to get this view. I did several preliminary sketches, then an oil panting. The light began to change while I was painting, as the skies brightened a little bit--amazing how fleeting the moment is, even when painting indoors! My nearly-finished painting is below.  It needs cropping and some other adjustments, but I like the way it captured a quiet moment. I hope that my next post will find me painting outdoors, so check back soon.

"My Boudoir"
Oil on Linen