Kellyville Lake

I was here a few months ago and painted a similar piece to this (here). The landscape reminds me of the paintings of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a member of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century. This group of painters worked between 1830 and 1870 so they were active just before the Impressionists emerged. I looked up the paintings of Corot and was impressed by the light tones and the beautiful harmony of colour. Having seen these paintings I felt my recent work was becoming dark, even the paintings of bright summer days. This was painted to the ideals of the Barbizon school especially the paintings of Corot.

This experiment has taught me a lot about this artists working method. The main body of the painting is applied with large brushes and ‘dry’ paint dragged across the surface. The palette is limited, hence the colour harmony. Details are applied with a fine long bristled brush using a very ‘liquid’ paint. This is very similar to what I do normally. The main difference is that all my paint is applied as ‘liquid’. As you will see in the video of my painting process (next post) I reduced the amount of solvent in the earlier stages. To stop the Alkyd fast drying paint from setting too quickly I mixed some standard oil paint with the Alkyd paints. As usual I didn’t use a medium, just solvent.

The colours used were Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber and Cerulean Blue. The size is 20″x15″ and took about 3 hours to complete.

I will have the video of the painting process in a few days, see you then.