Lone Tree and Lavender

Gray skies today and yesterday, so I have been in the studio. I'm not sure if this is the beginnings of storms Ernesto and John making their way up the east coast, but predictions are that we'll have rain at least through Friday. Here is another square format painting I just completed. (I told you I was getting hooked on the squares!) This one is a larger gallery wrapped painting, measuring 24"x 24".

A lot of times I tend to include architectural elements in my landscapes, but I like the tranquility of this lone tree that serves as my center of interest. I saw many such scenes while traveling the backroads of Provence. When the lavender is in bloom the air is heady with the scent of it. The rows of lavender in this piece lead the eye in to the tree. For more information about this painting, click on the image:

Here is a side view, showing the finished edge:

To see more of my paintings of Provence, click here.

painting artist Provence landscape painting

Zinnias

I went back to the Tuckahoe Plantation yesterday to paint the zinnia garden. They've got these wonderful rows of zinnias planted in the same spot every year, and I was happy to see that they were keeping up the tradition when I was there the other day.  I'm getting hooked on the square format canvas, but I'll have to stop soon because I'm running out of square frames! This is another 12x12". People wanted to chat yesterday so I still have to finish the crepe myrtles and add a few more touches elsewhere. I had to wrap it up though, as the sun was getting too high and hot towards the end and I was losing all of my lovely shade:

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Plein air in the garden

Yesterday I went out to the Tuckahoe Plantation here in Richmond for some morning plein air painting. Once one of the boyhood homes of Thomas Jefferson, the plantation is now a private residence. Visitors can visit the gardens for a small fee. While the grounds aren't large, they provide hundreds of  possibilities for paintings. 

 It was a fun morning. The only glitch was that once I got going I saw that I had exactly three paper towels! I use paper towels to constantly wipe my brushes off and keep my strokes full of clean color. Having only 3 tissues was....interesting. I think by the end of the session I had more paint on me than on the canvas!

Here is my painting as it appears after my morning plein air session, with no revisions. I will call it "Summer Roses". It measures 12x12", oil on canvas. I will probably go in with a touch or two here and there, but I like the freshness of this little piece, so I won't want to change it too much.

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Personal faves

There are times when I paint something and I am just like, "Wow! I love this!" I imagine of course that everyone else will just love it too, as I do. And yet, just as often, it is not the personal favorite that gets the great response. It may be some other painting that I've done.

When my husband comes to the studio, I grab him and say, "Honey, look at THIS!" 

"That's nice," he says, and then walks over to another painting I've done. "But THIS is great!"  (It is?)  .....So I can never tell what is going to connect. I just paint what connects with me, and hope that it connects with others.

This little painting is one that I just loved. I loved making it and I loved it when it was done because it had such fond memories attached to it. I am not one to paint a lot of cute puppies, but this little guy was one that I actually met when we were staying in the Provincial village of Lourmarin. He lived above a fabulous bakery, and he stared in his most menacing demeanor down at us from his upper window perch.

When Dave saw the painting, he said, "That's an unusual perspective. No one is going to know what to make of that sign." But, (in my most menacing demeanor,) I said, "Well, I'm leaving it as is!" So, while the sign, "Arts Pluriels," may not mean much to anyone but me, I know it is a shop sign hanging above the bakery (and now you do too!) And I will always look at this painting and think of the fabulous bread that we bought for our picnic, inspite of the fierce guard dog that threatened our mission.

I call this painting "Chien de Garde" (watch dog or guard dog). It is 12x9", oil on canvas. Click on the image for more info.

Varnishing

There has been much debate over whether artists should varnish their oil painitngs, and I think the word is still out, depending on who you ask.  A varnish is a resin applied to the surface layer of an oil painting. It adds sheen and can protect the painting from dust and pollutants. The varnish can be removed by conservators for cleaning without removing the paint layers underneath. But varnish also has yellowing properties and can turn quite dark over time. It can also crack the paint beneath it if it is applied when the painting isn't completely dry through and through. I have also seen paintings ruined by varnish that was applied too thickly or unevenly, so you have to be careful with it. 

In earlier times, varnish could protect from the dirt particles put out by burning coal, etc. But the Impressionists did not varnish their paintings because they wanted to avoid the yellowing properties perhaps, but mainly because they preferred a matte look to their paintings (if you go into a museum today you may see varnish on the surfaces of many of these paintings, but likely they were not put there by the painters themselves. Interestingly, Monet in particular preferred a very matte look and white, plain frames for his paintings; not the heavy ornate gold ones you see in the museums.)

Today varnish seems to be purely a optional decision, and mainly an aesthetic one. The Gamblin website has some good info on the topic of varnishing here. If an artist likes the look of a varnish, she can apply one, but only after the painting is completely dry. Oil paintings that have any thickness at all generally take about 6 months to dry through and through. If not, serious cracking can occur because the top layer of varnish will dry faster than the layers beneath.

In all honesty many of my paintings don't hang around in my studio for 6 months. What I usually do is to apply a retouch varnish once my paintings are dry to the touch on the surface. A retouch varnish is so lightweight that it becomes part of the top paint layer, so you don't risk the cracking that a heavier varnish can do. A retouch varnish can also even out the surface of the painting, bringing out darker areas that may have "sunken" to a more lustruous appearance. The effect is to provide a lusterous protective sheen to the painting, which I prefer to a super shiny surface.

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