Five Apples for Vincent (still life of five apples in a hay field in St. Remy)

For some time Vincent Van Gogh was at the mental hospital in St. Remy, Southern France where he painted some of his most iconic work including Starry Night. Many of the paintings he made were in the fields behind the hospital which were surrounded by a stone wall and backed by a wonderful landscape dotted with cottages and rolling mountains. The golden hayfields would be the subject of many of his final paintings. He would also discover the cypress pine tree motif in this area, one of which appears on the left front of Starry Night. After visiting the museum in Amsterdam and reading the book on Van Gogh by Taschen I was inspired to try and fuse his style with some other ideas I was working on at the time. I pulled an old painting out of my portfolio called "Apple Eye, Violet Sky" it was part of the doodleism lab book paintings, and decided to redo the painting in several different ways. This was another feature of Van Gogh's work, he would paint series of motifs making consecutive improvements and copies of the original. He did this because he was self taught and was learning from his trial and error, but also to fill the winter months and rainy days when it was impossible to paint outdoors as he liked to do. So I went to the grocer and bought five distinctive apples, then quickly made a practice version similar to what you see here. I resisted the urge to eat the apples, and made the finished work a few days later. The painting is larger than I usually do because I wanted it to fit in the frame that I use now to show a painting at home. The idea of specifically making a painting for decoration was another inspiration of Van Gogh, when his friend Gauguin came to visit, Vincent wanted some decorative paintings to make the apartment look inviting to entice his friend to stay. The result of that initiative was the infamous sunflower paintings.

My painting is a still life of five apples trying to escape a hay field in St. Remy. In fact, something that would make a pretty cool title, so I will put that in parenthesis. The apples are pushed up very high in the composition , and against the stone wall, making it look like they are blasting off or flying away. The biggest apple perspective wise (fourth from left) practically has a comet tail of fire coming off it (the hay). In the distant upper right there is a cottage and a very tiny figure of a painter with an easel representing Vincent. The top left has a city skyline which is a homage to the original painting I was working from (Apple Eye, Violet Sky). The cypress trees along the left edge are more tributes to Van Gogh and meant to fill the empty space there. Unfortunately it was hard to get a proper photo in the poor light, the original is more pastel-toned, while the photo you see is over saturated and unevenly lit. I will try to get a better photo if the sun comes out. This was the first painting I made with my new Series 7 Windsor Newton no 6. and no. 8 brushes that my parents picked up for me from Curry's in Ontario. They are pure sable and really handle the paint very well.

 24 x 36" hot press (thin stock) December 2018

Cape Cod, USA

This is another painting from the Cape Cod trip done about a decade ago. The scene is on the main street of the old part of town, I don't recall what the building was but it looks like a town hall or museum or something. There is a lot of detail in this very small painting, normally I would have simplified things but here you see the brick work detailing,  window frames, flag with stars and stripes, trees, shingles, etc. If I remember correctly there were some very large trees in the filed that obscured the view, and I had decided to edit them out to get the full building in the painting. I like how this painting pretty much captures the moment, the sun was just about to go down and this was probably the last painting of the day.
5 x 7" cold press Watercolour, ~2009?

Beach time! USA, Dominican Republic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some nice warm looking beach scenes to enjoy during this cold and wet winter! The first one was done in Cape Cod, where there are beautiful white sand beaches for miles and lots of hot sun. One thing to be aware of of is that the Atlantic water is very very cold! The scene was neat because the sand dune was like a giant wave, and the sign was like someone surfing on it. 

 

 

 

 

 

The second scene is from Punta Cana beach in Dominican Republic, looking up at one of the palm trees and a local bird with coconuts. That is not what is sound like, its an actual bird, and coconuts, well never mind. I managed to fit the topaz water in at the bottom of the painting, it was much warmer to swim in as compared to Cape Cod. To make all the subtle yellow tones work it is important to keep in some purple tones. The Cape Cod painting has purple shadows and washes on the sand, while the Punta Cana has some purple shadows on the tree and hatch roofs.
5 x 7 cold press 2009 or 2010?

View from Glasgow Green, Glasgow, Scotland

There were a lot of nice scenes in this large park called Glasgow Green, including a picturesque cultural museum and botanical garden. Maybe I was saturated with pretty scenery because what caught my eye was this industrial park across the Clyde River which could be viewed from one of the park benches in the Glasgow Green. On the roof of the building there was a work crew (not shown in the painting!) and I got the feeling that they were staring at me, perhaps wondering why somebody was making a painting of their factory. It took some time to complete this one, and midway through painting this it looked like a total disaster because all the paint was running together. Things started to dry and I got the defining lines onto the equipment on the roof, and the features on that glowing smoke and the reflections on the river, then everything came together. I love the little car in the parking lot, it really gives a sense of perspective and makes the scene come alive. For once there was no rain interrupting me, the weather held up and it was just quite cold and windy but I am used to that!
10 x 7" hot press (block), Sept. 2018

St. Enoch Subway Station, Glasgow, Scotland

This is a modern architectural addition to Glasgow's subway system, the St. Enoch station. It lies in the core of the downtown nearby one of the original subway stations that is now a cafe. The structure was made of mostly transparent glass, with stainless steel at the bottom. When I sat on this location it seemed like the impossible mission of watercolours, but I knew if I could get the perspective drawing correct on the complex shape of the subway entrance then the rest of the painting would hang together. The other challenge was that the landscape behind the glass was warped and altered by the curved and transparent glass panels. Not to mention is was about to rain here, but luckily it held off until I was complete.

5.5 x 7.5" hot press. Sept. 2018

Botanical Garden, Glasgow, Scotland

Another scene from Glasgow, this one was to the north side of the city, in the botanical gardens. They had two large complexes filled with tropical plant and flowers. This one had a desert theme inside, some of the trees reached the very top of the structure which was about five stories tall. From the outside the glass was fogged and frosted, so you could just see a blur of green and yellow. The glass panels were surrounded in very delicate white rod iron which I attempted to capture using negative space. In terms of difficulty level, this scene was easily a ten on a scale of ten, where ten is the most difficult. The reason is that painting white means that you leave the paper showing, and then paint around the shape you want. Considering the amount of thin white shapes and the complex geometry, not to mention the reflections on the glass, well, it was a real struggle. I felt like this painting was a bit of a disaster but when I saw it dry afterwards it seemed to work pretty well, at least I get the same feeling looking at this painting as I got looking at the original scene.
 I did another painting of the other structure in the botanical gardens, this one had quite a different construction it was a lot of glass, with a dark brown steel structure with more angular designs. It was a lot easier than the other one, lets say a seven out of ten on our difficulty scale because I could paint all the complex reflections and blurry plants behind the glass, and then apply the steel structure over top at the end. In fact, I started with a thin outline just to get the shape right. The final touches were the pigeons hanging out on the edge of the roof!

Watercolour hot press 5.5 x 7.5" Sept. 2018

Downtown Glasgow, Scotland

Here are two scenes from downtown Glasgow in the heart of the shopping district, the old building on the very right of the painting with the mossy bricks is the museum. The museum used to be a house back in the 19th century before it was donated to the city. On the left are some early 20th century style buildings with living space on the top floors and retail on the bottom. In the background is  more modern steel and glass office building. I liked the contrast between these constructions, the old being made in stone, the medium built with wood and brick, and the new with steel and glass. This also tells part of the story of Glasgow, and ancient trading center that went through many booms and busts over the years. In the 1990's they worked a lot on improving the living conditions and community atmosphere in the city. It was a great place to be for a visit. And yes, it was raining when I did this painting, although very lightly. I was lucky though because just when I finished it really started to pour. On another day I painted a similarly themed painting in the downtown, the weather was better for this one. It is near the central square where a lot of people (and pigeons) hang out. The pink building is an apartment complex, it actually had a slogan written on it but I left that out since the pattern was difficult enough as it was to capture on a small painting surface.

5.5 x 7.5" hot press watercolours, Sept. 2018