A Year On

It is a year since we were all painting in Provence. It never fails to amaze me what can happen in just a year. The most dramatic thing must be that the beautiful house that we all enjoyed, Ruth and Juliens home, burnt down in November. Happily now it is habitable again. I am now a grandmother, little Poppy is just 6 months, I think she disapproves of me already!! I have, in the last year begun to sell my work in volumes that mean I can count it as my main source of income. I am still illustrating but only lovely commissions for "real" books, one in particular that is still secret, is very exciting. I am working more for the gallery that I sell my work through, in fact I have a title now...business development manager! We are doing more art fairs, all across Britain. In fact life is very buisy and exciting. But I would love to be waking up in Provence, with nothing to do but paint, breathe in the lavender scented air and think about what we would have for supper. So come on, the rest of you, what has happened to you in a year?

A Seat In The Shade

oil on canvas 120 x 80 cm or 47 x 31.5 inches

I had to post something else up on this blog as the picture that Katherine posted of me, night painting, really began to annoy me as it popped up in the side bar of my blog!  

This is a big studio piece that I did for my recent exhibition at Beside The Wave.  Obviously larger studio works are done from photographs and I know that many people see that as "cheating" somehow.  Personally I know that many many artists use photographs but very few admit to it, it seems to be a bit of a naughty secret.  I don't see anything wrong with using as much information gathering media that you can lay your hands on.  I know one artist, Paul Lewin, who makes soundscapes which enhance his work and put him into the "zone" to work on his studio based paintings.  Another, Miles Heseltine,who takes very deliberately rubbish videos of the place he wants to paint and plays them over and over while he paints. 

 I do think that if you are going to use photographs then it is vital that you also work outside, en plein air, or draw and sketch as much as you can.  This practise really helps you use the photo properly, lets you control what you put in your painting and avoids a slavish copy.  We look and see very differently to the way a camera does, we are interested and stimulated by strange things while a camera sees and records all.  You need to make yourself aware of how you "see" before working with a photograph.

Anyway the exhibition went very well, my work sold well.  I was pleased by what sold and surprised by what didn't sell, some of the strongest peices didn't sell which only goes to show that there really is no way of predicting what makes somebody buy a painting!

A little night painting

Now I'm back home I've started to load all my photos into a Flickr Collection - Provence 2011 - for all to see - minus a few which will only be shared with those who visited Provence!

I thought I'd post a few of these to the blog so you can see what you would have seen while we were there if we hadn't had the lightning strike.

The first is to show you that Sarah not only produces lots of paintings - but also that she does it at all times of the day and night!

Here's a photo of her night painting on the night when we had the total eclipse of the moon.  That's as in plein air oil painting at night!

Sarah Wimperis - plein air oil painting at night

How Much Paint?

How much paint does a painter paint when a painter paints Provence?
Well this may tell you:
In two weeks I did 59 paintings.  13 small oils and 13 bigger ones, 11 larger watercolours, 11 medium watercolours and 11 tiny gouaches.
This is a picture of my oils just before I packed them to go home:

I wont bore you with the list of colours but they were all brand new when I arrived, white was finished and Paynes Grey and Vandyke Brown were unopened.  Interestingly taking them on the plane home was no problem. They were packed in my bag for the hold.  I had my old watercolour box in my hand luggage but that only caused the customs guy to talk about painting for a while, he was a keen amateur artist!
Here are some images to give you an idea of the various sizes of paintings done while Painting in Provence.

So to sum it all up, the average number of paintings done per day was 5, don't count the days arriving or leaving.  I have a lot of work for follow up paintings, some work for exhibition in August.  I took too many clothes.  Didn't drink enough wine.  Met two very lovely people Robyn and Ronelle.  Got to rather like scorpions and felt "energised" by lightening.  Didn't miss the tyranny of the Internet when we lost it, in fact it has made me think about how I use it.  Wished that I had had a car but was quite glad that I didn't, I wouldn't have liked the long drive home that everyone else had and I would have brought far too much "brocante" at the antiques market.  Best of all I fell in love with Provence.

The Heat of the Day

Shadow Shed.  Oil by Sarah Wimperis

Washing Line and Pegs.  Oil by Sarah Wimperis

House in the Hot Sun.  Watercolour by Sarah Wimperis.

 Here are a few little paintings, done in the heat of the midday sun in Provence, with the sound of the cicadas making the heat even more intense.  Dry grass and dusty earth and the smell of pine resin. 


A Little More From Far Away

Rainy Day.  Oil. By Sarah Wimperis.

Midnight, Summer Solstis.  Oil.  By Sarah Wimperis



Blue Chair. Oil. By Sarah Wimperis.

Having got home and unpacked my bags, mostly painting equipment and paintings, I have done a final count up and seem to have managed to have done 59 paintings in two weeks.  I am terrible at doing things after the event, blogging stuff that has been done and when the time has past I find difficult.  Not having the Internet for a week has also made me realise what a fantastic archiving system having a blog is! 
So while it is all fresh in my mind and before I get right back into illustration work and more painting I shall be making a page at the top of this blog, and on my blog The Red Shoes which will show all 59 paintings, large and small, oil, watercolour and gouache, good, bad and indifferent.  It is an archive, you might be interested to see what one, slightly obsessional, painter can do with two weeks.  I also want to say that every one was painted "en plein air" and "alla prima"  In other words, painted on the spot and in one hit!
I will, in later posts go through the materials used and any tips that I have learned from this trip.

Sarah Wimperis is Home

Crillion Le Brave Steps, watercolour



Pots on the Terasse, Gouche, small.




The Rode Home, Gouche, small



The Well, Gouache, small

Vine, Gouche, small

I am home, finally, back in Cornwall after two plane flights, a car journey, night at my mums, to collect the dog, and a long drive down to the heel of Cornwall.  My dear Big Dave has made a lovely meal and I have a large glass of wine.  I miss Provence already and am about to indulge myself with a viewing of Jean de Florette.  Can I be homesick for somewhere already?  On my last full day I got up at 5am and climbed part way up the magical mountain, Mont Ventoux, between ancient crags of white bleached limestone.  I placed my right hand on a rock face and rubbed some red sand around it, time travelled, and while I was travelling a bit of my heart became part of that mountain.
I will post more pictures tomorrow, in the meantime I hope you enjoy some small gouache paintings of a very special part of the world.

Two from Sarah

Blue skies and beautiful shadows in the early morning.  Little oil by Sarah Wimperis and after she had done this she toddled off to do yet another painting of the Potager.  This time with a view of the mountain in the blazing midday sun.

Potager in the Midday Sun by Sarah Wimperis.

There are many more of her Provencal paintings over on her blog The Red Shoes

Sarah's Saturday watercolours

Crillion le Brave at Night.

The Ruin Afternoon Sun.

A couple of watercolours by Sarah Wimperis who is enjoying this paint fest enormously.

Ruths Potager With Storm Clouds Gathering

Oil on board, by Sarah Wimperis.  More paintings of Provence are posted on her blog The Red Shoes because she cant stop painting and this blog isnt a one man show!

A Little Night Painting

Painted by Sarah Wimperis. 10.30pm.

I am so in love with this place already.

Ruth provides the inspiration...

This week I received a book in the post and a key.

My signed special limited edition (no. 114) of Ruth's new book Cherries from Chauvet's Orchard was posted to me by Julian.  This edition is raising funds for the orphanage in Bamako where Julian and Ruth's adopted son started his life.

The chapter titles are idyllic and make me want to start reading straight away - but I decide to reserve it for when I've started the journey from London to Provence - as a treat!

I also received an email to confirm it had been posted - complete with a review to wet my appetite:

“In Cherries from Chauvet’s Orchard, cellist Ruth Phillips makes music with words, capturing on  the page what her painter husband, Julian Merrow-Smith, does on canvas—a way of life that is achingly romantic yet not romanticized, that is earthbound yet exquisite, and one where sweat is rewarded with transcendence. As the couple struggles to build their home out of a farm ruin beneath the shadow of Mt. Ventoux and to make a living and life together, Julian must harness his muse. In a modern-day twist in this ancient place of luscious colors and cuisine, it is the worldwide web that changes their life. This is a true story of talent, ingenuity, and success against the odds, of pathos,  passion, and humor. You won’t put it down.”

--Dean King, author of Skeletons on the Zahara and Unbound

The book also uses quotations from friends, family, artists and collectors as introductions to the chapters.

Sarah is one of those people - this is the introduction to Cloud Shadows on page 160

Julian confims that painting is like running, or the violin, or the cello...it requires practice all the time. I am so sick of the people who think it pours out like a leaky tap, like it is easy or god given

Sarah Wimperis

So that means we'll be doing lots of practising in Provence!

Ruth's book came complete with a key to their house which we are renting for three weeks.  So now I have the two keys to enter their world as the book provides an introduction to all the places around where they live - and where we will be living later this month.

I'm now off to take the cats to my mother for their holiday and when I get back I'm getting down to some serious packing.....

Note:

• ‘Cherries from Chauvet’s Orchard’ is now available as a mass-market paperback and Kindle ebook (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Chapters and all major retailers for $16.95/ €11.95/£10.95 paperback and sub ten dollars for the Kindle version). 
• You can see a preview of the book here 
• Click the link at the top of this post for Amazon.

In Search of Inspiration

First Things First

OK, I am getting my priorities right here, got my ticket to fly, brought and paid for, got a passport, up to date with an unsmiling,  recognisable photo.  Now, the most important thing is to sort out what I am taking.  I am talking art materials here, not books or even clothes but paint, paper, drawing implements, brushes, boards etc.

What I plan to do is work out how many paintings I can do in a day, how many days I am staying in Provence, add a few more for good luck, gather it all together then weigh it.

Then clothes will take up the spare space, or not.  I could always wear a lot of my clothes, all at once for the flight!  Luckily Katherine has offered to take my oil paints with her as she is driving down and air planes don't like to take oil paints.  So I have a few colours arriving in the next day or two and then they will head off for the big city from Cornwall in a lovely parcel.

I am getting very excited, and the countdown thing on the side of this blog is making it worse...only 17 days to go!!