Sunday 14 February 2010

Finding a 'Voice'


Today it is a beautiful morning in the mountains and a Happy Valentine's day to all.  It felt like a morning for a colourful blog - recently they have been about limited palette paintings. The one above is a painting that I originally thought I had finished in December, but I actually re-painted much of it last week.  After a while it looked rather insipid. I always hang my work on my studio wall when I think it is finished to guage my own reaction to it. Then it was part of my attempt to pull back on the lush colour I like to use ... but with this one it just didn't feel right.   This is one of two views of the Dorset Coast path (see earlier blog for the original), I may try and restrain myself from tinkering with the other one!

I haven't talked about how important it is to find your own 'voice' as an artist.  That search for a way to present an image that is uniquely one's own. Here in the mountains that was a poser as the temptation is to paint the gradually washed out layers of mountains disappearing into the distance.  After three years I have begun to find some solutions to that as you can see from other blogs.

Interestingly enough I found that painting en 'pleine aire' resulted in my producing a very traditional landscape and as I am not interested in strict photo-realism,  I take the sketch I do outside back to the studio in order to bring my imagination into play.  This is  how I began to find my own particular style, or 'voice'. You can perhaps see what I mean if you look at the more traditional style of painting below that was done completely on location:





2 comments:

  1. Bonsoir Annie,
    Que c'est reposant de contempler ces bleus...
    ces oranges et ces verts...
    Ici nous sommes dans la grande blancheur après une bonne tempête de neige !
    J'aime beaucoup cette composition dans laquelle nos imaginaires peuvent sont invités à rejoindre le votre. On y respire une forme de paix.

    Merci
    Madeline

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bonsoir Annie,
    Que c'est reposant de contempler ces bleus...
    ces oranges et ces verts...
    Ici nous sommes dans la grande blancheur après une bonne tempête de neige !
    J'aime beaucoup cette composition dans laquelle nos imaginaires peuvent sont invités à rejoindre le votre. On y respire une forme de paix.

    Merci
    Madeline

    ReplyDelete