Provence late afternoon oil painting

Provence late afternoon

15x15cm (6"x6")

Oil on box canvas

Back to my usual colours today. I aimed for more of a mood painting with this one.

Zorn Palette mixing and study

Yesterday I experimented a little with the Zorn palette. I did some mixing on my palette to discover some of the various hues that can be created.
The palette

The mixes 

There are some lovely shades of pink, oranges and peaches in there. The purples are not looking too bad either but I could not make any greens.

Study Painting

Zorn palette landscape study

10x15cm (4"x6") oil on gessoed panel

I did this small practice painting to test some of the colours I could make. This time I did manage to get a sort of green that leant towards the yellow ochre.
The surface was too small for this, so I need to repeat this exercise on a larger panel. Compare this painting with a similar scene using my normal colours

Meandering Path, Landscape painting

15x15cm (6"x6") oil on canvas panel

Palette knife on a multi-coloured ground 
To purchase this painting CLICK HERE

Conclusion
The Zorn palette is much more subdued and would be good for autumn scenes, sunrises and sunsets. I can see that by adding an additional accent colour some nice mood paintings are possible.

I am looking forward to this Saturdays webinar to discover more about painting with this palette.

Zorn Palette Webinars - St Marks Square

I am participating in an on-line webinar run by Ken Vloothuis over 4 Saturday evenings. It is all about using the Zorn palette to become familiar with values.

The Painting

St Marks Square WIP, 40x50cm (16"x20") oil on canvas

Last Saturday's subject was St Marks Basilica. The building was loosely painted with the focus on the activity in front of the church i.e. the people.
It was an interesting exercise and my first time of

• painting a complicated building and 
• putting people into a painting
• using black as a major colour

The palette
 The Zorn palette uses only two colours

• cadmium red and 
• yellow ochre pale
• plus ivory black and titanium white. 

Those of you who know my paintings will realise this is a far cry from the colours I normally use.

Ivory Black
I do find the ivory black very dull and flat, but this may be because of the brand of paint. It was a last minute decision to join in and I did not have any black in my arsenal of oil paints. So I had to make do with the only one I could find in the local shops and this was a Pebeo, I am ordering some Winsor and Newton paint to see if that makes a difference.

Zorn Palette colour chart
After starting the painting, I researched the Zorn palette and found some interesting colour charts see Here which give me hope that I may be able to get to grips with the palette.

Conclusion 
I am not sure I like the Zorn palette, the colours are limiting although I believe that additional accent colours will be used in the other sessions. I can see that it might improve my understanding of values versus colour. It is always good to jump out of one's comfort zone and learn something new.

I shall keep you posted on how I progress with using this palette.

Lavender and Olives SOLD

Lavender and Olives, Provence Landscape Painting

18x24cm (approx 7"x11")

Oil on canvas panel, painted with a palette knife.

SOLD

Contact me about commissioning a similar painting HERE

Calm at the Lake rework progress

This is how the painting looked after I scraped back some of the pastel

And after the first stages of the block-in

And this is how it looks at the moment

I still need to work on it a while and will the update in a couple of days.

I used mainly Rembrandt pastel. This is now at the stage where I wish I had some softer pastel to give me a few juicy strokes.

I feel it already looks better compositionally, and would be interested in what you think or if you can see areas for improvement.

Check out the original version and my reasons for reworking it HERE

Reworking 'Calm at the Lake' pastel landscape

I have been participating in on-line landscape tutorials hosted by landscape painter Johannes Vloothuis for some time now. I feel more confident in my landscapes due to his webinars and can look at some of my older paintings with  more critical eye. As an exercise I have decided to rework one of my old pastel painting 'Calm at the Lake'.

Calm at the lake,

Pastel on sanded card

I liked this when I first painted this and still do to a certain extent, but I can now find several landscape  errors. The painting is on good quality sanded paper so I will scrape off some of the pastel and overpaint.

Things I like about the painting

1. Colour combination - the purples set of the greens very nicely
2. The water
3. Overall design

Items to fix
After studying the painting these are some of the things I want to change.

1. The sky should be the lightest area in the painting. This sky is light but I feel it is not light enough.
2. The mass of the mountain is too dark and does not recede enough. It needs to be blended in some places to soften the edges. I will also think about breaking up the mass to give another plane.
3. This line of background trees is too monotonous and needs to vary in shapes and colour.
4. Two cloned lollipop trees - need I say more!
5. The bank needs to be more melodic and not quite so straight lineish (newly invented word)
6. The reeds block the entry into the painting and are too detailed for the foreground.
7. Another lollipop tree - I will also move this tree over to the edge and only paint 3/4 of it to add some interest.

 These are the things I see at the moment. As I continue with the painting I may notice/change other things.
I will post the progress tomorrow.

Camargue Duo Sunrise and Sunset oil paintings

Camargue Duo Sunrise and Sunset

Each painting - 18x24cm oil on canvas panel

Painted with a palette knife

These two paintings show the difference between the sunrise and sunset over the Camargue marshland. The flamingoes just had a touch of pink, do they change colour with the seasons?

Provence Landscape paintings SOLD

Yesterday I participated in another street exhibition in one of the local villages. I met lots of people who liked my art and sold four small paintings which was nice.

Provence Landscapes by Marion Hedger

When I arrived home, I had also sold one of my paintings via my Etsy store 

Camargue Sunset oil palette knife painting

Camargue Sunset

18x24cm (approx 7"x10")

Oil on Canvas panel

See Here to purchase

A sister painting to Camargue Sunrise see HERE