A week in August. — David Albiston

Summer has brought plenty of days with the oil paints and the easel so I thought I’d kick off this blog with a few paintings from this past week or so, out and about in local spots along the Romanche valley.

I paint a lot and and although I’m a user of things like instagram, it’s occasional posts from a small account with few followers. As a result there is a large number of things I paint that never see the light of the online world, maybe not a bad thing, and certainly lots of the paintings wont be the finished article. Regardless, I thought I’d give a few of the day to day daubs a spot in this blog.

First up, some green, along the river looking back towards the Belledonne range. A couple of hours in the morning before things got too warm.

Another day another field. The Pregentil cliff band that overlooks the town of Bourg D’Oisans, in this case seen from further down the valley.

I quite like small 20x20 sketches. I generally cut mdf of plywood boards and coat with two or three layers of gesso. Here’s a couple, small, simple, quick and enjoyable … quality varies but in an odd way that’s really the point.

I had high hopes for this next one. The day previously this field had a good number of hay bales, a staple summer cliche for a landscape painter. I went the following morning ready for a Van Gogh moment to find they’d all gone. Undeterred, here it is. As a bonus there was a bird of prey doing its thing, flying across the field all morning. Possibly a buzzard, very noisy, but sadly didn’t get a spot in the painting.

*Missing Hay Bales, oil on canvas 40×30cm*

End of the first blog post and I’ll turn on comments just in case! I would be genuinely interested to hear if you pass by.

À la prochaine.