Mornac Sur Seudre Paintings in Oil and Acrylic

Back from France where I've had chance to relax, paint and think of Art. I love colour and the light over there encourages brighter colours on my palette. Here's a few completed oils and acrylics with a new one started and left over there to finish next time we visit. All were based on a recent visit to Mornac sur Seudre.

Charente Maritime Pastels

I was looking through my portfolio today and found these pastel studies of scenes in the Charente Maritime. 

I though they made a rather interesting set of work

The sunflowers were captured in the evening light. 

The third landscape is imaginary and was preparatory work for a larger painting.

Gaston Balande

 I was in France last month and saw a news item on Gaston Balande, a French painter from the time of Impressionism, Post Impressionism and Fauvism. He painted over 4000 works, many are scenes from the Saintonge. Its worth googling his name to see all the different styles he painted in. His work made me feel happy and this was very welcome at that time. Anyway, I just had to copy a few to see if I could get the feel and colour of them, although I didn't always keep faithfully to the original. I was working on my knee in front of a wood fire, trying to keep warm, (awful weather in France about same time Sandy was bashing New York) so oils were out of the question as I get in such a mess, I used gouache instead. I hope you enjoy them. 

Heres a link to his work ...

http://www.gaston-balande.com/diaporama-gaston-balande.html

Oil Painting

I love oils, I think its my favourite medium but I do get messy. I produced a portrait of me from an old photo recently but I look very sulky (and need to change it) and one of me gardening while my husband cleaned the VW. Neither are finished really buts that's how it is with me and oils.

Watercolour Exercises Charente Maritime

I decided to produce a few watercolours while in France. It was very rainy outside for quite a few days so I had to rely on logs, photos and books for inspiration. I enjoyed painting the summery scenes but found it harder to work from collections of pics than from real life. Select photo to view a big version

Exercises to explore washes

Noisy Seagulls

The cart was fun so I produced another below

I added white gouache to the sky

The finished Chagnon pastel painting

Me painting at Chagnon, Charente Maritime, France