I know its now summer, and I'm catching up a bit on my notes and past works. This is about the Autumn.
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| Sunlight behind the trees, Long Crendon |
Suddenly with autumn approaching, I would have much more time to devote to my painting, and I would need to start thinking hard what I wanted to paint. And why I would paint what I wanted to paint.
I knew '''how''' I wanted to do it, out in the open air, in front of the subject. En plein air, a technique where a painting is not only sketched outdoors but brought to a finish, a way of working fundamental of the impressionists, whom I have always loved and admired.
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| Foggy morning, the hale, Wendover |
As a starting point is a love for the beauty and history of the English countryside.
Also, even though I also love the British coastline, the subject of so many artists, and Cornwall feels like a second home, I in no way regret living where I do and having the Chilterns as a base. Here there are visual riches in abundance, the rolling hills, beach woods and bluebells, reservoirs and canals and streams, country houses and gardens, ancient village communities and historic market towns.
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| Aylesbury old town |
I want to paint what I see, the beauty of the English landscape, and also be aware of how it evolved, what made it, and what forces are playing on it now.
This beauty is a jewel, but one that we have to be aware of, and not take for granted. Time never stands still, the needs of society have to be considered, development and growth are necessary and change is inevitable. But change can be controlled, and balanced against the needs of the countryside, its history and nature that we want to preserve. But preserve not just in a theme part way, but as an ongoing way of life that can fit into the modern world.
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| Coloured trees, Nether Winchendon |
The first idea, and the most obvious, was to capture the changing colours od autumn. This happens over some weeks, but in individual trees there is a much shorter window of opportunity. Tying to capture the most striking autumn colour becomes then, not just an exercise in painting, but of exploration and discovery.
In vain, for example, did I look for yellow foliage in a rural setting. Some thing that is more rare as its confined to only certain types of trees and also lasts only a short number of days, and I never did find any outside of an urban setting as I wanted.
The hunt for colour highlighted to me the need to know intimately your ground, in different weather conditions and times of day.
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| Autumn foliage, Dunsmore |
One thing of note as I have talked to, followed and been followed by other people through social media, I have tried to connect to people who are local and love the country side. Not just for the fact that they might like my painting, which I hope they do, but there exploration and the images they post become an additional source of inspiration, and way of seeing more that I normally could and expanding the geographical area I,m looking at, but still with in reachable distance. Sometime professional photographers, but more often not but with a great eye and an appreciation of natures beauty. Dog walking, often forced out at the extreme bookends of the day come back with the fantastic sunrise and sunset pictures.
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| Tinge of Autumn, Wendover Woods |
Increasingly driven by ideas of not just what to paint, but how something can be painted, how best to capture the effect of water, how to capture the complexity of woodland, how the sky works. Then there is colour, first one has to reject what colour the mind thinks things are, for example, trees are green on brown stalks, the sky are blue etc, and really look hard and anew. Often these kinds of problem will mull in the mind for days or even weeks and a solution that must be tried can come at any time, waking from sleep or driving in the car.
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| Bridge over the Thame, at Thame. |
One thing I know, is I have a long journey ahead.
See painting
After some time thinking about it, its time to get out there and relaunch my painting blog. I was using it just to post my paintings, but have switched to Instagram for that, as its much easier, and can be done on the go via the phone. I still want to talk about my paintings but I also want to talk about my attempt at becoming an artist. I hope to come up with some articles of interest, share some observations on technique, and how I go about it.
This will probably cover only oil painting as I'm pretty exclusive on that. Oil paints are very particular in their handling, and I've gained allot of ideas and tips from other artists pronouncements, great or small.
I'm toying with the idea of talking about the financial side as well, that in particular might be very interesting to others trying to do the same thing. In the past few months I've seen loads of incredible artists, mostly through the wonders of social media, which really open up discovery on a global scale. Its now incredibly easy, through platforms such as Instagram to see great paintings from anywhere in the world, and through the connections and links to be able to buy many of them as well. I would like to talk about the artists I really like, and there is easily enough to do that monthly.
I have gained some added opinions as well on owning , buying, possessing, and selling art. Obviously I'm looking to sell, but I want to sell at a fair price. I believe in affordable art on the one hand, but also that there is an amazing amount of pleasure to be had to hang real works on your walls rather than just copies. I want to become an advocate, not just of my works but of real work in general, and believe there are many many gems out there at very affordable prices.
Now that I've started, you can be sure there will be more posts to follow soon. In the mean time please follow me on Instagram, there are now links to many social media all over this site but here it is again
https://www.instagram.com/chris.twelf/
Thanks all
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Hello, my name is Christian Twelftree.
