L'Auberge des Fontanettes with new clothes

Auberge des Fontanettes

9x12"

Oils on panel

It is my intention to spend the entire year painting only in oils.  I feel that until you are confident, competant and comfortable with a medium, chopping and changing can prove to be more than just a distraction.  I spent a year painting in nothing but acrylics until I got a handle on them.  Now it is the turn of oils, but I think I have come home at last.

This is one of our favourite mountain retreats, but without it's cloak of snow it looks quite different.  I have painted it many times, but I think it does no harm to revisit, (and I can always call in and get a refreshing drink when it gets hot and tiring).

The dark shadow isnt on the paiting, it is the shadow of the easel holder.  The paint was very wet so I didnt really want to move it or I would get oil paint all over my camera.  Not good.

My paintings are always for sale. Please email me if you are interested.

Land of big pointy mountains

Where the sun doesn't shine all the time! Trying to avoid the rain I spotted this view, which I have painted before in watercolour, but this time it was almost all grey.  The distant mountains kept dissappearing behind a heavy veil of clouds, and sometimes just a fat sausage of cloud obscured the middle distance.  The painting looked very dark when I got home so I had to liven up the foreground, although on checking my reference photos there were times when the light appeared from nowhere and illuminated parts of the scene.  You can see the ski slopes on the bottom left, carving their route through the trees.  They look very odd denuded of their habitual cloak of snow.
Vallee de la Glière, Pralognan la Vanoise
Oils on linen board
30x30 cms

Old location, new medium

I am very much enjoying painting plein air (outside in the fresh air) in oils with all it's associated problems.

I revisited a favourite location up the mountain and painted it in oils instead of my previous watercolours or pastels. I am going to revisit lots of my favourite haunts and do the same, I just need to rationalise my kit to make it more easily portable, the one thing I can't afford to leave behind is my brolly, the strong mountain sun on the painting panel results in some very dark paintings that require quite a lot of adjustment when I get back home. In my mind that's not quite in the spirit of plein air painting, but is pretty inevitable anyway.

Hameau des Fontanettes
Oils on linen canvas board
30x30cms





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Location:Pralognan la Vanoise, Savoie, France

Back up the Hill

Hameau de Fontanettes

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

Summer hamlets - Cholliere

There are a number of hamlets in the mountains that can only be used in the summer months. In the winter they are only accessible on foot, with skis or snow shoes. In the summer they come to life, often rented out to holidaymakers, but still with little or no vehicular access.
Cholliere is one of the closer ones. It is about 20 minutes above the village, a lovely walk up a path alongside the river.
In the winter the river bubbles under the snow and ice, but in the summer it rushes downhill, boosted by the glacial melt water to a pale turquoise, over ochre coloured rocks. That is a painting for another day.
Behind you can see Grande Casse and the Aiguille de Vanoise, and the distinctive mound of Le Moriond.
This time it wasn't too far to carry my painting things. I still need to reduce what I take, but watercolour needs less equipment, so has to be favourite for outings on foot.

Watercolour on Arches paper. Approx 31x23 cms.
My paintings are always for sale. If you are interested email me.

Summer again

After much flitting about we are back in Pralognan, the weather hasn't been as consistent as last year, so I have established a more permanent (than the dining room table) studio upstairs in the attic. The light is good and here is plenty of space, unfortunately the access (via ladder) is a little precarious, but hey ho...

The first of my summer offerings is here, started in the spring from sketches on site and photographs to follow up. The first painting finished in my new studio!
It is the view upstream of the Torrent de la Gliere, with the round dome of Le Moriond behind, from the Pont de Creuset at the hamlet of Fontanettes. I have got some great photos of the same view covered in snow so I'll save that for later.

Acrylic on canvas. 40x40cm

My paintings are always for sale. If you are interested please email me.