It’s fun to be back in the studio. A bunch of painted heads have been keeping me busy this past week. The first one is based on an old black and white photo of Woody Guthrie, the rest are accumulated sketches and ideas.
Archive for the ‘Watercolor’ Category
PAINTED HEADS
November 10, 2011
CHATEAU DE LA FLEUNIE
November 1, 2011After our stay in Aix en Provence we boarded a coach and made our way through the French country side to Chateau de la Fluenie. The Chateau was built in the 1300′s and extended in the 1600′s. It is a beautiful old building set on manicured, spacious grounds just outside the small village of Condat in the Dordogne
The main dining room
After a hard days painting it was nice to relax and enjoy drinks on the terrace as the sun went down.
We were fortunate to have access to a large conference room,should the weather turn bad. Fortunately we had only one foggy morning where staying indoors made painting a lot more comfortable.
The Chateau had its own heard of deer and a collection of very small goats.
Further down the paddock were a pair of friendly pigs
The small village of Condat, just down the road from La Fleunie, was a great place to paint. There was a bar, coffee shop and restaurant in the village, so we were well looked after.
Lunch in Condat
Butterfly disguised as dandelion.
Hand hewn timber in the roof of an ancient Condat farm building.
Trees in the region were getting ready to loose their leaves – some were bare, some where still green and some had fantastic colors.
We visited the medieval town of Sarlat – beautiful old buildings, markets, shops and restaurants, plus a wealth of painting subjects. A great place to spend the day.
Behind the Cathedral we found a quiet spot with a great view of one of the towns Medieval houses.
La Roque-Gageac was another medieval town tucked under a cliff on the bend of the Dordogne River. It seemed a strange location for a town, but looked spectacular reflected in the water. We spent most of the day painting there, then went to visit the Lascaux Caves. No photos due to copyright restrictions according to our guide?!
After the workshop we traveled to Bordeaux airport where everyone headed off in different directions.
Dianne and I stayed a couple of days in Bordeaux and after the luxurious accommodation we were used to, the view from our room came as a bit of a shock.
Bordeaux has some beautiful buildings, but not far from where we stayed was the building below. It must be the ugliest building in France, built from checker plate metal, freeway crash barriers and funny little windows.
Bordeaux fruit stand
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AIX WORKSHOP
October 20, 2011After a week in Paris we flew to Marseilles to meet up with the people on our workshop. It was great to catch up with friends from previous workshops and meet up with the new students. A coach took us to our luxury hotel, Le Piggonet, on the outside of the old town of Aix en Provence.
The hotel was a beautiful old building set in magnificent gardens. We could have happily spent a week painting in the gardens, but the town of Aix had a lot to offer so we split our painting time between the hotel and the town.
Le Piggonet
Hotel Gardens
Painting in the Hotel gardens
Dining at Le Piggonet
Flower markets Aix en Provence
Street Markets
We were introduced to some fantastic restaurants in the town. One of our students lived in the country side not far from Aix and had a great knowledge of all the best restaurants. This was one of our favorites – Le Patio, a small family run restaurant with a great atmosphere, good service and fantastic food.
The little town of St. Remy is not far from Aix en Provence. We spent a day there, painting and visiting the Asylum Van Gogh spent time in. We were privileged to paint in the garden of the asylum, where Van Gogh would have often sat and sketched.
Although the asylum surroundings were idealic, life inside must have been horrific. These bath tubs were filled with cold water into which troublesome inmates were immersed and trapped under these wooden boards.
In the town of St. Remy, the main square provided a quiet, spacious area surrounded by ancient stone walls and wooden shutters. We spent an enjoyable afternoon painting there before heading back to our hotel for drinks under the plane trees.
Blue Shutters – St. Remy
Cassis is a small fishing town on the Mediterranean coast not far from Aix. The busy harbour and backdrop of old buildings made a great painting subject. We shared the park across the harbour with the local boules players, cigarette smokers and baguette eaters. Under the shade of a grove of casuarina trees, we painted the changing vista of the harbour.
Cassis Waterfront
Paul Cezanne lived and painted in Aix en Provence. His house and studio have been made into a museum, crammed with his old coats, umbrellas, paint boxes, skulls, bones and still life props that feature in his paintings.
Cezanne had the house built to his design – living area downstairs, large studio upstairs.
The studio ceiling is about 5 metres high and the Northern wall, almost completely glass. The walls are painted a mid tone, neutral gray and there is a 4 meter x .5 meter corner hatch to remove large works from the studio. It’s a fantastic studio, unfortunately no photographs are allowed inside. Below is the front door to the house.
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BEND WORKSHOP
July 25, 2011As usual the Bend workshop was a lot of fun. It was great to catch up with friends from our previous Oregon workshops, and to finally meet people we had only spoken to via email. Tracy, Jan and Cindy did a fantastic job keeping things running smoothly and Tracy’s husband, Bob, drove up from Depot Bay one day to treat us to a feast of Dungeness crab and fresh fish – Yum – fantastic! We had students from as far away as Florida, Hawaii, Canada and even Russia
The big studio at the Pheonix Inn is well set up with an overhead camera for demos and large tables for all students
Two color demo using Indigo and a transparent, Burnt Sienna like color mixed from Quinaceradone Gold, Alizarin and a touch of Ultramarine
Making sense of a complicated subject
A simple subject made interesting by shifting the emphasis away from formal symmetry to a more dynamic diagonal thrust.
A workshop in Bend, Oregon wouldn’t be right without a painting of Mirror Pond.
Cheese cloth, rice paper, pastel, ink and gesso were used to build up the interesting textures of this Italian Hilltop Village.
In this painting of Monterey Wharf, Ultramarine Blue gouache was used to give maximum impact to the focal point.
This simple subject is a lot of fun to paint and a great way to work with positive and negative shapes.
We are looking forward to coming back to the US for more workshops in the not too distant future.
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DILLMAN’S WORKSHOP
June 17, 2011Dillman’s Resort is tucked up into the north of Wisconsin at Lac Du Flambeau. It sits on a tree covered peninsular jutting out into a beautiful lake. We were lucky to have good weather, but the resort closes over winter due to snow.
Evenings on the lake are pretty spectacular, watching the sun set to the haunting call of loons
In the main reception area is a large open fire, the Tom Lynch Library, an art supply shop, a bar and friendly, helpful staff.
Art workshops have been conducted at Dillmans since 1978. Their two large studios have excellent facilities and the resort offers great accommodation with kitchens, barbecues, kayaks and push bikes.
Workshop Demos
Cool nights were warmed up by a large bonfire hosted by one of our group.
The week at Dillmans seemed to go very quickly, but we look forward to coming back to this beautiful part of the world in a couple of years time.
GLEN DAVIS
May 26, 2011A couple of weeks ago I joined large format photographer, Tony Lewis, for a few days painting and photographing up over the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Our subject was the ruins of an old oil shale works tucked under the escarpment at Glen Davis. It’s a spectacular location and Tony and I plan to base an exhibition on these and other abandoned ruins in the area.
The dominating structure at the old shale works is the abandoned retort building. Its interesting brick work, steel strapping and monumental scale give it a unique and menacing presence.
The contrast between the hard, geometric ruins and the soft, organic landscape make stark and beautiful subjects as the sun goes down.
Tony waits for a shot through the early morning fog. Large format photography is a time consuming business – calculating exposure, loading film, framing shots and then waiting for the perfect light.
We were lucky to have atmospheric foggy mornings and mostly clear days while we were there. The fog soaked everything, saturating the colors and stretching the tonal contrast – ideal conditions for taking photographs.
We started and finished each day in the dark. My intention was to do a few watercolor sketches, but there was so much interesting stuff to record , I only managed one painting of the old retorts.
I’m looking forward to getting back down to the area with Tony and exploring some more of these old ruins he has discovered.
Tony’s large format images can be seen on his website “A Brief Vision of Time”
STUDIO WORKSHOP
May 24, 2011In April we had two one week workshops in my studio. It was a lot of fun. We had students from all over the place – Cairns, Melbourne, Sydney, The Sunshine Coast, even Hamilton Island.
We worked hard and some great paintings were produced. It’s good to see students pick up momentum as the workshops progress. The first day or two are usually a little tentative, then, as every one relaxes and get to know one another, the paintings really start to improve. We all managed to do at least two 1/4 sheet paintings each day. I would demonstrate under a high definition camera hooked up to a large LCD screen, so everyone had a great view of what was happening. Being able to zoom right in on fine detail made it easy to pick up different techniques.
After the demo every one would work on their own paintings while I walked around giving advice and assistance where necessary.
We were spoiled with delicious cakes and slices courtesy of Dianne. I was just getting used to it then the workshop finished!
Hard at work
Landscape demo using French Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo Blue, Quinacridone Gold and Permanent Alizarin.
In this demo we took a complicated subject, simplified it then worked detail over the simplified shapes. The sky and awnings were painted with pale ultramarine gouache (mixed from white and ultramarine gouache).
A similar subject, this time we launched into it with a big 1/2 inch bristle brush to make the main Ultramarine shapes then built the rest of the painting around these marks.
Again, using a 1/2 inch bristle brush, we reduced this subject to a few simple shapes. A broad, direct approach delivers just enough information to tell the story without the clutter of unnecessary detail.
This demo was an experiment with negative shapes. The leaves were built up layer by layer, painting the successively darker backgrounds and leaving the leaf shapes exposed.
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The three images below were an experiment using a watercolor Gesso on aluminium composite panel. The watercolor behaves in a completely different way to working on a paper surface. Pigment sits on the surface rather than soaking in. It is easily washed back or lifted off. I love the way the gesso brush strokes are exaggerated by the settling paint, and I also like the hard, dead flat surface to work on.
