Painting in Provence, France

Lavender Fields near Sault, with Mount Ventoux in the distance

Last year we were fortunate to travel from Sydney and spend a week painting "en plein air" with Julian Merrow-Smith in the Vaucluse area of Provence. Julian is well known for his blog featuring the daily auction of his small paintings  "Postcards from Provence" .

In addition to Julian's expert mentoring whilst painting this wonderful landscape, we were accommodated at La Madelene, and what an exceptional experience it was. It is a beautifully renovated 12th century priory near Malaucene.  

La Madelene 

Our hosts Philip and Jude are exceptional hosts.  Click to read more
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Pearl Beach near Sydney, Australia.

 Every so often I participate in an art weekend with a group of friends, discussing painting methods, things that have inspired us, sharing ideas, watching art films, etc., etc.   A few weeks ago spent one of those wonderful weekend with friends who live at Pearl Beach, which is just north of Sydney, Australia. 
 

 My plein air (painted on site) paintings and sketches from that weekend, are shown below.  

Pearl Beach, near Sydney Australia
12 x 10 inches  (30 x 25cms)
Oil on board
 

It was a beautiful clear sunny day & we sat high on the rocks above, to paint this one. Evidently the name of the beach comes from the pearl shapes made by the waves in the wet sand.

The next day we descended to the beach where the light was quite different to yesterday, being quite dark and cloudy during the early morning. 







Pearl Beach
A couple of sketches using  watercolour pencil on paper

Pearl Beach Headland
A Oil on Canvas
12 x 10 inches  (30 x 25cms)


Four of our group will be attending the renowned Julian Merrow Smith's "Postcards from Provence"  plein air workshop in the south of France next year, which will be a wonderful experience.

 

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Hawkesbury River, Sydney- Arthur Streeton and I.

A few weeks ago I travelled to paint the Hawkesbury River near Freemans Reach. The small plein air painting appears below.

Hawkesbury River near Freemans Reach
5 x 4 inches  (12.7 x 10cm)
Oil on Canvas.
 

I didn't realise it at the time but I was only a river bend away from where Arthur Streeton in 1896 painted the iconic "The purple noon’s transparent might". I love the deep (but low chroma) blue that Streeton uses in this painting.

The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might by Arthur Streeton  Oil on Canvas
123.0 x 123.0 cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne  

The site is well marked now as "Streeton Lookout at Freemans Reach" overlooking the spot where Streeton painted the river. When Streeton discovered the Hawkesbury, the river became a subject for a  series of large works.  Streeton used unorthodox (for the time) shapes for his canvases and used a square one for this "panoramic" painting . He felt that he discovered "the great hidden poetry" of the Australian landscape in the ‘glory of river and plain spread before him.

 

Katherine Tyrrell has an informative post on Arthur Streeton on her blog "Making a Mark", and built a new website about Streeton with links to information and online images.

Streeton, Tom Roberts, Charles Condor, Frederick McCubbin and the other Australian Impressionists are well known for their plein air painting expeditions and "camps" near Sydney and Melbourne in the mid 1800s. The National Gallery of Victoria has a good overview reference of these sites at this link

 

I have recently sketched at a  couple of the other Sydney sites ( Coogee and Mosman Bay) that they painted at,  and they will feature in a couple of future posts.

My other blog "Painted Journey" has paintings and drawings from my second post about the painting trip to Central Australia around Alice Springs.

 

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