Monday 3 October 2011

Calm waters, summer evening

Here is a small painting of the River Avon on a summer evening, just a couple of minutes walk from my flat.

Calm waters, summer evening   10"x8"   oil on board


This has been done from a photograph I took a few weeks ago as I was looking for a spot to paint. This is the view from the bridge and I almost painted this on the spot but changed my mind at the last minute as there were too many people crossing that bridge and I was too much on the way. I decided to take a picture and paint it back in the studio and went on to paint a quieter place that day that you might have seen on one of my previous posts (click here to see the post).


The photograph reference

As you will probably notice on the photograph above, I decided not to include the metallic structure in the distance, not because some might consider it as ugly (I actually quite like this local landmark) but simply because I felt like doing a painting that would be just about water and reflections and didn't want anything to steal the show. On a other day, I probably would have included it but not this time.

On a other note, I'm delighted to announce that I have 6 paintings selected for the Bath Prize 2011 out of the 8 I entered. The show will start in a few weeks time and I'll post more info soon about this but meanwhile feel free to check out my entries page here.

9 comments:

  1. Et bravo pour les 6 sélections au Bath Prize! Bisous, Sophie

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  2. Hey Congratulations Valerie!! I got three accepted, for which I am well pleased.
    (you could always put the Eifel Tower in place of the gas works (or the Belgium equivalent:-))

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  3. Hi Valerie.
    As usual, brilliant. Congratulations on your acceptance for the exhibition. I had a look at your entries, and I was looking for my favourite
    out of the six, but couldn`t decide, they are all brilliant. If I really had`to pick a favourite, it would be Reflections on the River, stunning. How do you achieve that fuzzy atmosphere? it`s brilliant. All the best with the exhibition Valerie, and once again, all brilliant.
    Vic.

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  4. Wow Valerie! That's a fantastic job of painting from a photo! It looks as though you were actually there to me! Congratulations on being selected for the Bath prize too!

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  5. Merci Sophie:-) J'ai pas (encore!) gagné le prix mais ce n'est qu'une question de jours n'est ce pas?

    Thanks Andrew. Good to hear you have 3 paintings selected. Looking forward to the show. About the Belgium landmark to add in the painting, I suppose the most famous building would be "l'Atomium" but I would think twice before integrating it as it has the odd shape of a unit cell - google it!

    Thanks Victor for your comment. The page of my entries is still showing my 8 entries but basically the first 6 ones are the ones selected. Glad you like the Reflections on the River. My trick for this one would be about adding some impressionistic touches of highlights at the end with pure dry paint to give a chalky feeling to it.

    Thanks Haidee-Jo for your lovely comment. I had a look at your blog and you have some lovely paintings there, I'm a follower now!

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  6. Very beautiful painting!
    Congratulations

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  7. First congratulations on getting six in the show. I look forward to hearing how it turns out. I like the simplicity of this painting. I have started several but seem to not be finishing them. I'll eventually get back to them but right now they are accumulating. Do you ever have unfinished paintings stack up? I think I kind of loose interest if they aren't working out right away. Then I can go back to them with a fresh eye later and I find that I like them better.

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  8. Thanks Douglas! I'm just like you, I have quite a few unfinished paintings, probably mainly from my Paris trip. My problem is that if I wait too long to finish them, I lose interest. So I'll probably end up working only on the few good ones and paint over the rest...

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