Completed the maison à colombages.
It was very challenging and took longer than i wanted.
I was woo-ed by all the detail and my painting process ended up being more like watercolour painting  than a nice meaty oil painting. I shall try to steer clear of such detail in future.
But the results are nice I suppose, but nothing I am too enthused about.

Now, onto the next. But what will it be?
I haven't made a voyage to Etten just yet...

I've been working away on my latest painting: maison à colombages. Painting from a photo I took in Rennes.
I find however, that it is a stuggle and reveals some shortcomings with Oil Pastels.

There is a lot of detail to communicate, and the Oil Pastel crayon by itself is too cumbersome for the task. Thankfully I can thin it out with turpentine and use a very small brush, but this process of thinning and painting, thinning again etc etc is not efficient and defeats the immediacy of the oil pastel.

I will have to make a some change to my process, maybe eliminate detail. But the very fact that the oil pastel allows the ability to use a small brush, entices one toward detail, so it's a kind of struggle.

Vincent modeled himself after his own artistic heroes. Jean-François Millet the French painter in particular. Most famous for his themes of peasants, specfically this one, The Sower.

These peasant themes would re-occur in Van Gogh's work time and again and is one of the things that set him apart from the other Impressionists.

I was just wondering if there might be a similar symbolic icon in contemporary times. The Sower is actually a religious theme so I don't think there is.

So, the Van Gogh plan.
As i was saying I'd like to use Van Gogh as an artist's template.
What does that mean?
His life, his work, both?
My initial thoughts were to live my life as Van Gogh lived his. At least to live in the same cities and villages as he did. Maybe I could also live life like he did: unemployed and totally consumed with his art.
One could take that idea quite literal, for example and attempt to live like a poor person did in Europe in the 1880's.

I could attempt to live without electricity and use a simple wood burner stove to cook on, grind my own paints etc.
But the reality is that the world has changed so much for that.
While it's possible to physically live without electricity, it would be difficult to accomplish in practice.

Even when one takes on a lease agreement in France (and Ireland) one must ring the electricity provider and change the account into your name. I suppose I could stop there, and basically use no electricty, but I would still be paying for the service.

Also, in France the provider charges a pro-rated amount of electricity each month and automactially debits your bank account. So in effect I would be paying for electricity whether I used it or not.
Now of course, I could reclaim this money after a year's duration, when the provider takes the final metre reading, minus the monthly fee for having the service in the first place.

Secondly, finding a living place equiped with an actual wood burner would prove difficult, not impossible I suppose.
I may have to skirt around local fire regulations however as many old places might be equipped with a chimney, the local laws forbid it's use during summer months.


**Hey i just had an idea, a small Caravan would do. I could equip it with my own wood burner, move it to the nearest campsite and not use electrictiy hookups. It would probably be low-rent living, depending upon where I can park it up.****

Anyway, doing my cooking over a woodburner is really a non-runner as I would be spending a lot of time everyday mitigating simple functions of living like cooking meals, rather than painting. So a gas burner would be a must...

Anyway food for thought.

In all reality, living life like Van Gogh did in the 1880's by itself, is not necessarily a requirement in using Van Gogh as my template. Vincent Van Gogh didn't shun the technology of his age. he used TUBES of paint and portable easels in the field. These were inventions of the time that enabled the Impressionists to undertake painting en plein air. He was a modern man living in a modern time, struggling with concepts about himself, his place in the modern world, and finding his feet in world of artistic expression and aesthetics in a particularly revolutionary time.


 

I uploaded some prints. They look nice and bright. Maybe the page scrolls a little long, but whatever. Also the site isn't found in Google searches so that is a problem that needs addressing.

Was cool to digitally manipulate some of my work. Almost gets me to re-paint some in a different colour scheme. But i digress.

Hopefully this evening can get back to actual painting

Ok, website is mostly completed, except for the Prints section. Still plenty of work to do there.

Hopefully will get back to drawing tomorrow however my wife and I will be heading out to a small village north Rennes on a social outing so that will cause a delay.

Have had to put my latest painting to one side while I wrestle with this website, looking forward to getting back to it now. Have it placed prominently over the fireplace as a constant reminder. The old buildings in France are truly incredible.

Well, spent the better part of 3 days trying to get this website up. It's tedious work!
I just noticed the Date of the blog is shown using the MM/DD/YYYY format, don't know if I can change that to the more usual and internationally recognized DD/MM/YYYY format.
A small annoyance I suppose.

Anyway,  once I get things on this site in-place I hope to flesh-out this Van Gogh idea a bit more.