Sunday 21 August 2011

Can't do one without the other

Faith in pastel

This is Alyssa's little sister Faith, who is four now.  I couldn't do one without doing the other.  I now need a picture of their little brother Sam, who is equally as cute, but in a boyish sort of way, then I will have a full set.

Faith
Pastel on Ingres paper
21 x 28 cms

Painting faces


My mum has come to visit in the mountains.  It is very hot which makes painting at altitude very tiring so we have been sitting in the shade of the awning on our terrace painting faces.  

My favourite medium for these is pastel, and due to the small size of the works I find pastel pencils ideal.  My biggest problem is keeping the image fresh.  The temptation is to go back in again and again, perfecting, adjusting and generally fiddling.  
I like to be able to see the pastel strokes and the texture of the support, but I do like to get a decent likeness (for me it a portrait isn't worth it's weight in paper if it isn't recogniseable, although there is a huge gulf between being recogniseable and achieving a good likeness!

This is my niece Alyssa, my brother's eldest daughter, aged 7.  She lives in California and will make a perfect Prom Queen in due course.


Alyssa
Pastel on Ingres paper
21 x 28 cms

Sunday 14 August 2011

Winter Flashback


Despite it being high summer in the Alps the weather can be unpredictable, so on the damp and dreary days I go back to unfinished work from the winter.  It seems really strange painting snow on a hot summery day, but when I look out of my skylight and see the mountains shrouded in mist it isn't a problem.

This is the Refuge at Barmettes, a very welcome hostelry to stop for lunch or a warming vin-chaud, adjacent to one of the high lifts at around 2000 metres.

On this day there was a clear blue sky to the east and a huge bank of cloud to the west as the sun was sinking,  it peeped out from a gap in the cloud, just brushing odd spots on the snow, before it finally sank below the mountains. It was really cold.

The sun goes off the mountains quite early in the winter months.  You can see there aren't many skiers outside the lodge, and only a few skis lined up, that means most people have set off down for to warmth and security of their cosy chalets.

There is a bit of glare in the sky in the photo which doesn't show on the painting.  I used medium to allow me to get a smooth finish on the sky, it is a bit more reflective and I don't have my camera with the polaroid filter here with me.  I will have to re-photograph it when I get my posh camera back from the mend.  (It had an accident on the high seas!)



Refuge Les Barmettes en hiver
40 x 30 x 5 cms
Acrylic on stretched canvas
£235 ready to hang

Saturday 6 August 2011

Les Prioux - a summer hamlet

Les Prioux
This hamlet is only accessible in the summer, it is a favourite spot for taking a leisurely lunch in one of the delightful restaurants or a gentle stroll up the mountain tracks.  There are loads of quite taxing hiking routes around, but also a good selection of easier options, and it is easily accessible by car.
The old stone chalets have mainly been refurbished and are used for holidays.  The brown building at the front left is a mazot, a traditional french shed or barn.  The wood is that deep brown colour because it has been burnt by the sun and has no other protection,  the ones in this village are in remarkably good condition.

My first attempt at this painting, yesterday in the sunshine, was a bit of a disaster. I made some amendments to it when I got home, which is never a good plan as it often destroys the freshness of the original.  Watercolour painting is a real 'one shot' affair.

So in good time honoured tradition I gave it a second shot today.  
The weather was a bit murky so I climbed up into my eerie, armed with the original painting done on location, a photographic reference and a well thumbed copy of a book of watercolour paintings of the mountains round here by an artist who's work I really admire  http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/images/284206271X/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=301061&s=books

I don't think my job looks anything like his (I suspect 'robust' is an adjective I would apply to mine, whereas 'subtle and sensitive' would be more appropriate for Mantis' work),  but I love the way he uses colour and I did find it helpful having something to refer to that I liked rather than my original, which I thoroughly disliked.

I am pleased to say I am happier with the result than I was yesterday.

watercolour on hot pressed paper
35 x 25 cms





Tumbling waters

Doronne de Chaviere

The mountains around Pralognan are crowned by three enormous glaciers, which control a micro-climate in the valley below.  In the summer the melt water gallops downhill in glorious shades of cobalt turquoise and green over the soft yellows and purples of the underlying rocks.  

These rivers have an undeniable attraction for me, yet I approach them with dread as the bubbling waters are notoriously difficult to capture in paint.  Once again I am beguiled.

This is another sketchpad entry, but I think it would look good framed and hanging on a wall, so I will cut a mount for it and add it to my 'exhibition' stock.
22 x 30 cms
watercolour on paper





Back up the Hill

I like this spot.  I can get there in the car so I can take all my equipment and make myself comfortable.  This is my first watercolour of the summer here in the Vanoise National Park despite having been here two weeks already.  Up to now the summer has been more like an English one, so I have been working inside.  It is nice to get out though now the weather seems to have broken.  

This is on a popular route up the mountain and there is a pleasant lunch stop at the top of the hamlet. The grass is a ski slope in the winter and I would be mowed down by skiers if I were to set up there in the snow.
I think there are some other versions of this scene further back, but as a familiar spot it is a good one for a warm up painting.  

It is watercolour in a sketchbook and has a grubby mark in the sky where I was impatient and rubbed the paper before it was dry, so it will stay in the sketchbook and I will do another version at a later date.

I was here last summer on foot, and walking down admiring the view I tumbled carrying all my kit, broke my right thumb and made a real mess of my elbow, which put my out of contact with paintbrushes for six weeks until it all healed.  Moral = watch your footings, never mind the view!

30 x 20 cms
watercolour on rough paper

Friday 11 February 2011

Revisiting favourites - le Moriond

I have had a bit of a hiatus in my painting endeavours recently.  In the winter I don't get to paint as much a) because it is too cold to paint outdoors,  and  b) because I like to go skiing.  This time it has been due to my poor husband who has a broken arm and shoulder and is recuperating from an operation to fix them both.  The weather has been glorious for the past 5 weeks, although not so good for the snow, so I managed to get back to my favourite location, looking up the river at Pont du Creuset towards the Moriond.  The snow has melted enough to see the river trickling down - rather than gushing down in the summer version of this painting (earlier in this blog).

I have gone back to my favourite acrylics.  I underpainted the canvas first with a strong red wash, which shows through as tiny specks of colour, and gives a lively feeling. Then I blocked in with more opaque colours.
I did toy with doing the final layer in thicker oils, but chose not to as I wanted to push the colours and I wasn't sure how it would go.  Maybe next time I will gird my loins and go with the oil paint.

I am really pleased with the way it has turned out.  It is still at the stage of hanging on the lounge wall where I can see anything I want to alter - but I think that's it now.

I have plenty more images of this lovely place to work from in the warmth of my attic, maybe a bit more abstract next time.

Le Moriond - snow
30 x 40 x 5 cms stretched canvas
£235 ready to hang

Thursday 13 January 2011

Stretching my wings

I got a new book about painting in a more abstract style, a theme I have always been interested in but never pursued to the extent I would like.
This is my first painting after reading through one of the chapters about 'visualisation'


It is a view of Pralognan from one of my favourite walks up towards the summer village of Cholliere, the path runs alongside the river Doronne de Chaviere, which in the spring and summer has water of the most stunning colours from the glacier melt.  In the winter the snows colours everything with tint of shiver.


I am afraid my graphic tendencies once again overruled my artistic aspirations, it is definitely more representational than I first intended, but I think it is going in the right general direction.
It is painted with a very restricted palette of Prussian Blue, Cobalt Blue, Permanent Magenta and Indian Yellow and I tried to suggest distance with warm v. cool colours.  To me it looks as cold as the day I walked up there.

Dorone de Chaviere
Watercolour
36 x 26 cms approx
£145.00  matted, ready for framing.

Monday 3 January 2011

Blanche Neige

Out of our kitchen window, looking straight up to the mountain called Grand Bec, there are quite a few chalets on the hillside.
On Christmas Eve, during a brief pause in the snowfall, with low cloud and mist you couldn't see the other chalets, only the one nearest to us, called Blanche Neige (White Snow).
It is the one of the oldest holiday chalets in the village, little has changed inside.

I did this little watercolour painting alongside my mum in my attic studio from sketches we did through the kitchen window and photos I took.  It was too cold to paint outside.
Most of my paintings are now on display in the Vallee Blanche Restaurant in Pralognan, so I do need to do some more to put on the walls of the chalet now that the bustle of the Christmas holiday has slipped by. 


Blanche Neige.
22 x 16cms
watercolour 
£80.00  matted and ready to frame