Come Inside

"Hot Afternoon"
10 x 18, oil on linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2015

I have been putting the finishing touches on some new interior paintings. I love to paint rooms that are well lived-in. I always fall captive to the thrill of entering a space that contains the echoes of earlier footfalls. Or as Connie Hayes writes, I love rooms with "ghosts". 

The top painting is a room at a B&B, where I stayed in Normandy. I did many sketches there, and used them to work on the painting back home in my studio. I tried to convey
the heat of the late afternoon (no air conditioning, of course!), and the shadows from the oblique angle at which the sunlight entered. A student of Robert d'Arista has quoted d'Arista's instruction that in painting interiors, we should portray "light announcing the room". We should look not at the things in the room, per se, but rather at the way light falls on different objects in the space, and so describes the room. 

"Remains of the Day"
oil on linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2015

Just above is another painting that I tried to make all about the light in the room. I caught those final rays from the hour when the sun is lowest in the sky. That's why I titled this one "Remains of the Day". The use of the hot reds and cool blues is a bit of exaggeration, but I was pleased with the way the painting conveyed the feel of the moment in the room.

"Jigsaw Corner"
12 x 9, oil on linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2015

I conclude with a painting of the jigsaw table, tucked in the corner of a friend's vacation home. This one was tricky, since there are windows both of the walls--two different sources of natural light!--but thankfully one was clearly dominant. When I look at this painting, I sense the ghosts of jigsaw puzzlers past. Some are bending intently over the table, and others pass by casually to place a piece or two as a pleasant distraction. Enjoy!