Paintings Hatched from Drawings!

Answering Bruce's Request

Bruce Trewin, of Graves St. Amant, France---who was one of our hearty band at the French Workshop---posted a comment on yesterday's blog post...

"You definitely have a talent for improving on reality and the paintings were probably a further leap towards romantic perfection. Would it be possible to see some of the paintings?"

I'd certainly be happy to do so, but I have very few (and very poor) photos of most of my paintings. But here's a wee one for you, and a follow-up on one from yesterday.

Sue Sanford painted near the spot in the first one, on our first day of painting. Then Jon Main did so, too, on one of our days off. 

When I was there, in 1995, there wasn't a screen of trees masking the view from the left bank of the stream, la Vauvre. Thus I was able to include the stream in my drawing. When Jon and Sue worked there, they had the stream behind and to the side of them, not figuring in their paintings.

 In 2008, I made this 8x10" (20x25cm) painting, from the sketch, for a charity auction. It's an example of how one's drawings can just keep giving.

While the painting above was made long after the drawing, the painting below was made soon after the drawing. 

While I was drawing the sketch, in the harsh light of noontime, I was being bombarded by questions from tourists. It was a reasonably complicated drawing to make and the distraction wasn't helpful! 

Anyway, here are the two photos I posted last night----first the actual scene as it appears in 2013, followed by the drawing---and then by the painting.

   
The painting is very large, so its scale makes the effect something quite different than the small drawing. You'll see that I changed a number of things in the drawing, and that I then changed still more things in the painting. 

The painting was bought by a couple with small children. For years they used the painting as a starting point for telling stories.

For me, whose imagination was first stirred by N. C. Wyeth's illustrations for Treasure Island, the circle seemed complete.