Pochade Box Paintings: Finished the challenge!

Friday, April 22, 2016

Finished the challenge!

Here we are at the end of my 30 in 30-day painting challenge and I have got to say that it zoomed by, I must have had fun.

I enjoyed exploring composition and colors with these alla-prima paintings. From the beginning I intended to concentrate on design and composition but as I reflect over the collection I started to see an unexpected story being told. As I was looking at the big forms in nature, a theme quickly evolved that was about earth and sky and water. Lots of weather effects, dramatic skies, sunsets and clouds, the forces of nature. So I was happy that they collectively communicated the spirit of the natural world.

My approach was to be as direct and complete with my brush as I could and record the motif in front of me. The goal was to make quick and spontaneous decisions, describing things simply and abstractly. Yet hang onto that illusion of real space and place and the experience of it. I find myself looking a lot at the Barbizon painters, Charles-Francois Daubigny and Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and the Russian School of the late nineteenth century Isaac Levitan and Ilya Repin. These painters handle the sense of space so masterfully, so much abstraction in their work, brush handling, surfaces and texture. They could just drag the viewer into the atmosphere of the painting

Anyway this is where my head has been during this endeavor. Looking for insight from artist of the past and observing the world for inspiration.