Thursday, February 25, 2010

En plein ruelle


Last weekend I attended Jose De Juan's first workshop. It had been a very long time since I painted in oils, and I never painted in oils on location. Jose is a talented painter, and he has a large store of painting wisdom, collected from others and assembled from his own experience. I learned some stuff, and I'm reasonably happy with what I painted. It was pretty wonderful standing out there in the gloom and drizzle, surrounded by freight cars and graffiti writers, struggling to catch light and colors and make a painting.

5 comments:

  1. This has a stained glass effect. A distillation of form. I watched Barb paint this on site in a graffiti laden alley in East LA. She takes the elements of a rather hard edged industrial environment and transforms it into a personal narrative. This is the true value of the art of landscape, to deepen our perceptions of the world around us through the personal vision of another.

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  2. couldn't have said it better, it has all of the elements that make your work great mom.

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  3. I know it was a bit of a struggle to use the oils for what they are as opposed to trying to make them behave as watercolor but I'd say the result was worth it. Specially considering the weather and the scenery :).
    I love how the right side palm tree has so much presence and how you observed the color shifts so keenly.

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  4. Barbara, this is beautiful! I'm so glad that David told me about your blog...you are such a talented artist. This painting, especially, is so subtle in color and captures that gloomy, rainy feeling. I love it.

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  5. Thank you all. I hear that rain is expected this Saturday, and I might just go back out into it.

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