Colour and Fauvism

Thanks to ABC2 I have been captivated by their TV program Forger's Masterclass on Sunday nights.
One of the recent shows was on Andre Derain, a fauvist painter of the early 1900's. From Wikipedia:

Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions.^[1][2] The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.<sup>[1]

So here is my version, in my own simplistic style and with my own choice of colours - I like 'em bright!!  The painting is called "Cityscape - Santiago, Chile" and is taken from memory and from photos.  The old church, the railing. and the distinctive building on the right are taken from one of Tom's photos of Santiago. I love the way the building on the right glows - one of those things that just happens when I painted over the dark red background!</sup>



Cityscape - Santiago, Chile



Another Landscape - South Georgia

A couple of blogs ago I promised an Antarctic painting coming on.  So here it is.  This painting is set in Summer, on South Georgia, in the Antarctic.  We visited there in 2007, and this painting is a composition of things we saw.  The painting is set at Gritviken, an old whaling station, and now a museum and scientific base.  Gritviken is also the place where the explorer Ernest Shackleton is buried.  So, I have called this painting "Graveyard - South Georgia", and as you will see Gritviken is a graveyard for old exploration vessels as well.  Shackleton's grave is in the graveyard at the left rear of the painting, across the harbour.  To contrast against the dead ships and the graveyard, and the stark mountain sides and scree slopes, I have included a sign of life in the form of grass, and a baby seal.  There were hundreds there when we visited - this one looks as though it has been disturbed whilst sleeping in the tussock.  The colour of the sea is a very cold-looking blue.  Funny enough, my husband recognised the place when I first showed him the painting, so there must be some resemblance.  I would love to add somer red to the painting to give a lift to it, but there just wasn't any around.


Graveyard - South Georgia



Started at TAFE

Just to log the milestone in my blog, I started TAFE Cert 3 in Visual Arts this week, doing painting.  Hope this helps!!!

Experiment with New Style - Lighthouse



The Lighthouse

 This painting is about light and dark.  The viewer is in the light, looking out through the grass to the dark lighthouse, quite clearly no longer in use.  The style is new for me and experimental, and I quite like the way the aloneness of the dead lighthouse is depicted and contrasted against the light and aliveness of the green grass.  I will probably be returning to this style in the near future.

Sunrise over Patagonia

I have returned to a landscape for this one.  It is completely from memory, and is of the southern part of Argentina known as Patagonia.  We travelled to South America in 2007, as part of our Antarctica trip.  We loved southern Argentina and Chile, and particularly the southern Andes and the associated glaciers, streams, and lakes.  This painting recalls the Andes, the snow-tipped mountains, and the beautiful racing streams.  I have a particular memory of sunrise, and the gold of the sun reflecting off the tips of the mountains, and I have tried to capture that in this work.
Some might think that the fern seems out of place, but my research tells me that the fern is Blechnum magellanicum, a slow growing tree fern native to southern Chile and parts of Argentina.  It is extremely hardy, and grows from sea level to 2200m, and can handle temperatures down to -15C.
I painted this one with a pallet knife, hence the roughness of the mountains and stream.  I particularly like the foreground stream, showing the water cascading over the rocks.  As usual, the photo has not done the colours of the painting justice.


Sunrise over Patagonia

 After painting this one, I think I might have to turn to Antarctica for more inspiration in the near future.  The colours there were so extreme.

Slum Child Completed at last

I have finally finished Slum Child, and as you will see it has changed a little from my earlier blog.  The colour of the girl's dress had to change to lemon, to give her more focus, and I have filled in more detail.  It is quite a dark picture, and not one everyone will like it.  The painting was done from a photo of a Mumbai slum, and I have not been able to include all the rubbish and accumulated debris of the original - there was just too much.  The colours are my own, as the original was very brown and dirty, and so I picked out the bits of dirty colour that were there and enhanced them to give the colour of the walls.

Slum Child (final)

Gum Tree Revised

I have had quite a bit of feedback about my "Snappy Gum" tree.  I had to agree with comments about the leaves being too heavy - it was my first tree and I didn't get it right.  So I practiced leaves a bit, then went back and changed the original.  I think the revised one is better, so here it is.  For those of you who asked, the gum is Eucalyptus leucophloia.  I was quite impressed with its fine upstanding habit.

Snappy Gum (E. leucophloia)