Painting of Vines in Autumn - Large Size Plein-air Painting

'Semillion, Labadie, Monbazillac'
Large Size Oil on Canvas
81 x 65 cm (approx 26 x 32 inches)
©adam cope
1500 euros, framed

Here's the finished state. Here's the link to its Work In Progress : Lay-in for Plein-Air Large Oil Painting.

I went out the next day for a second plein-air session with a mental note 'yellow & grey and not yellow & pink'. As you can read in the WIP blog entry .... "actually I quiet like the overcast mid-tone grey. Still the weather will dictate to me this evening". What the note meant was to hold fast to the prior, premeditated decision - made calmly in the studio looking at the WIP - to go for a yellow & grey major colour harmony and not yellow & pink. As a sunset progresses, it generally gets pinker & pinker. If I wanted to keep to grey overcast skies as the major, with only some bands of pink as the minor, I would have to 'fix' or 'stop' in my mind's eye the sunset at a relatively early point of its progress.

A tip to help this difficult plein-air trick is to consciously divide one's painting time between sky & land. But then, the danger is that they won't correspond correctly.... A 4pm landscape on a 6pm sky! Sometimes you have to tinker with plein-air paintings back in the studio to correct this issue.

What do you think? Does sky & land correspond correctly in my above painting?

Here's the painting with a grey frame so as to keep true to the yellow/grey colour theme.

WIP : Lay-in for Plein-Air Large Oil Painting

WORK IN PROGRESS _ UNFINISHED STATE
'Semillion - Labadie, Monbazillac'
Large Size Oil on Canvas
81 x 65 cm (approx 26 x 32 inches)
©adam cope

The vigorous semillion still have their leaves on the south & south west facing slopes. They turn to a pure shinning yellow-gold (cadimum yellow pale) with no oranges nor reds. This year with the early frosts in october & then none since, there's only a little of the yellow ochre, the dull crispy burnt dead scar tissue. Still, the second week of November is late in the season...the grapes are all in, except the occassional third vendange. All the red 'cepages' (vine types) have fallen, the golden muscadelle has gone, the cabernet sauvignon looks tired & the frost pockets and cold parcels have stripped off the rest of the leaves.


This lay-in was done quickly, painting into the sunset. I knew that I'd not finish in one plein-air session & thus some of time-pressure was off. What's the point of being rushed & thus making paintings that look all rushed & frentic?

I'm hoping to get the plein-air part finished this evening. Which is why I deliberately left the sky unworked ... sod's law, actually I quiet like the overcast mid-tone grey. Still the weather will dictate to me this evening. Clear skies with cirrus clouds this morning. That's beyond my control (thankfully).

Dipytchs, Tripytchs, Parallax & Cézanne on Painting Locations

'Pêchers des Vignes 2'
Oil on Canvas
medium size oil - 15 F format francais
54 x 65cm (approx 26 x 22 inches)
© Adam Cope
available


'Pêchers des Vignes 3'
Oil on Canvas
medium size oil - 15 F format francais
54 x 65cm (approx 26 x 22 inches)
© Adam Cope
available

These two paintings are a pair, or to use the proper word for a pair of paintings, a diptych (OK so the're not hinged together as most medieval Diptychs were). Right from the beginning, in the conception phase of making a picture ("There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other."-Cezanne), they were conceived of as a being together. The same subject but from a slightly different view point.
They look something like this when proper hung side by sides as I intended, Doesn't internet rip paintings apart!



Not the first inkling of this idea for me:

'2 Truffiers, 1 Verger de Pruniers'
2009
8F, 12 F, 8F
© Adam Cope
(Sadly broken up & (part) sold-off in parts)

This diptych from 2007 (happily sold together & still hanging together) 'Landmark Oak & Path' - Painting Locations

PARALLAX

Cézanne said he could find a hundred different paintings just by slightly inclining his neck & seeing the same subject from a different angle. The quote starts off 'here by the river bank..." so he's talking about a more humble subject than the grand Mont St. Victoire of which he mamnged to do at least forty oils & at least as many watercolours. What's that in terms of Diptychs???!! ;-)

I stalk around my subject from all angles & it still surprises me that things appear to move about when I move about. Really curious, this... Amazes me more & more, certainly the more I'm aware f it. That they seem to shift like astral objects, sometimes conjuncting, other times eclipsing. Don't take this for granted, as it really is a very strange happening when you look at it as if for the first time. It's called PARALLAX. Go out & try it. Try it with one eye open. Try it with both eyes open. Choosing a good spot is central to plein-air painting. Too many times in bad paintings this curious shifting world seems 'fixed', rendered immobile, 'un-paralaxed' into a static 'full-frontal' elevation, a mind's eye summary of the object & not the reality of the real world where things overlap & bump into each other & (appear to) shift when we shift.

Here wiki on Parallax:

Parallax

A simple everyday example of parallax can be seen in the dashboard of motor vehicles that use a "needle" type speedometer gauge (when the needle is mounted in front of its dial scale in a way that leaves a noticeable spacing between them). When viewed from directly in front, the speed may show 60 (i.e. the needle appears against the '60' mark on the dial behind); but when viewed from the passenger seat (i.e. from an oblique angle) the needle can appear against a slightly lower or higher mark (depending on whether it is viewed from the left or from the right), because of the combined effect of the spacing and the angle of view.

Visual perception

Because the eyes of humans and other highly evolved animals are in different positions on the head, they present different views simultaneously. This is the basis of stereopsis, the process by which the brain exploits the parallax due to the different views from the eye to gain depth perception and estimate distances to objects. Animals also use motion parallax, in which the animal (or just the head) moves to gain different viewpoints. For example, pigeons (whose eyes do not have overlapping fields of view and thus cannot use stereopsis) bob their heads up and down to see depth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

Painting of Peach Trees

'Pêchers des Vignes 1'
30 x 40 cm
Oil on Canvas Board
© Adam Cope
150 € via PayPal, P&P included

These peach trees are typical of south west France, where traditionally they are planted alongside the vines. They fruit at the same time as the vines but are even more susceptible to mildew rot than the vines themselves, and thus act as an early warning alarm for the wine growers.

In the above painting, they are planted in an orchard of prune trees. I guess they like shelter as they are vulnerable to frosts & winds, being a 'Tree of the Warm South'. In autumn they have the most glowing colours.

Here's a painting from 2007:

'Deux Pêchers des Vignes'
Oil on MDF Panel
30 x 40 cm ( approx 12 x 16 inches)
©Adam Cope
2007
sold

photo - wiki

Les autres noms de la pêche et du Pêcher -

En latin : Prunus persica, anglais : Peach tree, allemand : Pfirsichbaum , en Arabe : Khawkh,
en Danois : Fersken, en Espagnol : Melocoton, en Hollandais : Perzikboom, en Italien : Persico,
en Suédois : Persiketräd, en Russe : Piersika, en Flamand : Perzikbomen

when photography meets blogging meets photoshop

Le Cloitre des Récollets - La Maison des Vins de Bergerac
photo - adam cope


corrected photo by Dominique Lieppe

One of the interesting things that occasionally happens when photography meets blogging meets photoshop is that photos get retouched according to the particular taste of individual photographers. A bit like the surrealist game of 'Beautiful corpses' where several artists draw on the same figure, with the paper folded over. One is no longer restricted to the simple click of the camera.

I was lucky enough to have this happen when I was whinging away in the ether about underexposing the white of page when photographing pencil drawings. Hey presto out of the blue, by way of kindness, Niels at My Camera World came along & fixed the problem. Thanks!

Then recently Dominique came along & did some work on the above photo. Interestingly, photography as 'plastic' & maleable as paint, as fictive & not truth?

Bonsoir

Je suis le visiteur qui n'aime pas trop le bleu dans la toile des maisons troglodytes.
Sur la photo du blog, j'ai retouché la perspective, retiré du vert, désaturé un peu et retiré le morceau de personne en bas à gauche.
Vous trouverez ci-joint le nouveau fichier.
Je vous en souhaite bonne réception.
Dominique

La Dordogne, Bergerac

'The Dordogne at Begerac'
(the boat is 'un gabare', a flat bottomed haulage vessel from yesteryear, used for transporting cargo downstream. Now it's restored, motorised & hauls tourist both up & downstream).

A long sunny summer, with even october smiling with blue skies :-)

Back from exhibiting at La Maison des Vin de Bergerac. Two weeks of sunshine whilst manning the show & today, it's raining... so no painting today, and anyway I'm tired after the show & the masterclass workshop.

Outside the large & generous window, the dordogne was smiling & gleaming in the sunlight. It was good to spend two week closely observing how she changed. Current, wind & sunlight. Snaking starlight, black mysteries. The water patterns & movements are certainly a difficulty subject. I reworked this oil during the exhibition. feel that the water is better understood.

'Bergerac, La Dordogne Marchande'
Oil on Masonite Panel
approx 55 x 42 cm
© adam cope
see the work in progress for this oil
WIP 1
WIP 2
WIP 3

The river is called 'marchande' when the high spring current is fast & deep, carrying the marchandise easily downstream to Bordeaux & overseas. The weather conditions were nearly like the middle of the Altantic sea - black with torrential rain, interspered with the very occassional gleaming clear patch. Nothing like this summer just gone - nothing but blue skies!

'Bergerac Waterfront'
Oil on Masonite Panel
approx 46 x36 cm
© adam cope
sold


'Bergerac Waterfront'
watercolour
2004
half sheet of arches rough 300gms
© adam cope
sold

There was a full sheet watercolour of the same view that sold before I photographed it. I regret not having a photo.

Exhibition & Mini-Workshop at La Maison des Vins de Bergerac

The closters with it's big tree 'La Cloitre des Recollets ' - La Maison des Vins de Bergerac

You are cordially invited to an exhibition of paintings & drawings -

La Maison des Vins de Bergerac
DORDOGNE
FRANCE

Friday 2 to Sunday 18 Oct
open in the afternoons from 14 hr
shut on mondays

There's an 'un-hanging party' ('pot d'amité') at the end of the show & mini-workshop on the last sunday afternoon, so if you're in town, why not come & enjoy!


'Begerac'
Oil on MDF panel
30 x 40cm (approx 12 x 16 inches).
© Adam Cope


Sold

I'll also be exhibiting some of my 'private' paintings, which aren't for sell, as well as a selection of recent drawings, loosely based around the theme of my two young children.


MINI-WORKSHOP FOR INTERMEDIATE & ADVANCED PAINTERS

weds 14, thurs 15, fri 16 oct
9,30 hr to 12 hr, with a review session at end of afternooon of individual paintings.

150 euros, three places still available.

Painting in the cloisters, riverside & beautiful old town. Quality individual tuition, small group. Real painting, real learning.
If you'd like to know more : blog365 (at) artists-atelier.com