This summer has re-attached me to the Dutch landscape and got me painting again. Painting big, this time, real big canvasses. I got a couple of old canvasses, about 110x90 cm, which is about 44x35 inches, and no fearing the great big white space before me....? Well, thinking really hard on proportions and relative square sizes.. helps. A couple of steps are show below (the last picture giving an idea of the size - which is big compared to what I do usually):
Than the next one a little bit smaller. This canvas is so old, I could feel completely free to paint and never mind whether it di work out or not. So less constructed and thought about.., just something I saw somewhere. And the lines became more round as well. When you watch the different steps below, you see what I got onto this canvas:
And then, I bought a big new canvas about 160x140cm, with the idea to stay more geometirc again, more straight lines. Those straight lines interest me always, as they are about a polder landscape that has been made by human hands as well. This series starts with an existing smaller painting (35x20 cm about..) and goes like:
With every new layer the colours and the proportions improve, and the overall picture gains in depth. I feel like the great big white canvas does not scare me so much anymore. It helps a lot when your brushes are in proportion to the canvas, and when using a lot of oil paint is a feasible option - no small tubes...
On the other hand, I get to deal with another known problem. How to keep the freshness of a first attempt? Those squares have a horrible tendency to get fixed and dull and immovable. I do not like that. But making these series of steps, helpt to keep track of things & freshness. And I have dealt with this before - so to be continues!
In two weeks time I will be part of our local city's art weekend and have an open studio, see Kunstroute in Leiden. People can come and visit and see the next part of this story for themselves.
