Early morning

For the last couple of weeks I have been busy with a commissioned work based on the Red Hills (refer to my previous post listed here) near De Rust in the Western Cape. My plan was to do the same painting with better sky and clouds and a better composition of the mountains. I am busy working through a course of Johannes Vloothuis entitled The Essentials of Painting Mountains and I incorporated what I learned form this course into the painting. But, as I was busy with the landscape I suddenly realized that the hills are quite dark and when I added colour to the hills, that it looks like sunshine hitting it straight on. So the painting turned out as shown below. Rather unexpected, but quite nice. When looking at the painting I get the feeling of being in the Little Karoo early in the morning. I can hear the farm and the sounds through the early morning air. The air is quite chilly and just at that moment the sun breaks the horizon and hits the top of the hills. I feel like I can walk around in this painting and really be there.

The things that works in this painting are the sky, the clouds (to some degree) and the composition of the hill within the photo. I also managed in incorporate some interesting features into the field at the bottom center of the painting. As I look at the painting and sit back to savor my coffee, it tastes really good. The outcome was different to what I expected, but quite satisfying.

I encourage you to click on the image to see a larger version of the painting. The colour is better in the bigger image.

Early morning on the red hills

Warm and cool colours

Another study that I recently completed was one of warm and cool colours. I based this study on a photo with all of these colours. The objective of the painting was to get the warm light to shine through some of the grapes and present the overall play of the light with the bunch of grapes.

There is some grapes missing at the bottom of the the bunch, but since it is a study, I did not go back to modify it.

Bunch or grapes

Grey-scale studies

I have lagged somewhat with the blog posts in the last while, but I want to introduce 2 grey-scale studies in this post. My objective was to work with a heavier paint basis, play with a new range of brushes and in particular play with the scheme of light and dark.

The first painting (presented below) was done with strong application of the palette knife. I don’t feel I quite accomplished the my objective, but the result was acceptable.

Black and white woods

The second study was on a coastal line. I focused more on using a brush than a palette knife in the painting and accomplished what I intended to. I felt that I also succeeded in the proper application of my new brush set in this painting. The yellowish colour in the photo of the painting is due to an effect of the camera.

Coastline

The painter – poem

I write a lot of poems and upon the suggestion of my wife, I have decided to publish some of them here.  This poem is called “The painter”.

The paint
The brush
The stroke
And the rush
Everything’s touching my inside
The colour
The flow
The light
And the glow
Working with my brain’s right-side
Analytical
Combined
With the beautiful
And so is defined
The real me of contrast and value