Every year I am delighted and astounded when April comes around! We moved to New Bern in 1989 in May, after the rush of spring flowers was over, so we lived here an entire year before we knew how breathtaking it is.
I'm having a one person show at the gallery in September so have been out taking photos of things to paint (I do this EVERY year). Over the past few years as our gallery business has grown I've had less and less time to paint. But this year I've given myself this deadline and am excited to be painting.
I have started doing some small "plein air" paintings in oil, they are more impressionistic than my watercolors, and yesterday I stretched a large piece of watercolor paper to do my new bridge/skyline painting.
Here are a few photos I took this year to paint from. I seldom paint on site. For me painting is a solitary thing, I like to get swept away and if I'm somewhere where people can talk to me it kind of breaks the spell.
When I take photos they are not always "this is exactly what I am going to paint" they are often this is where I am going to start the painting or the structure of it.
Sometimes Michael will say "what are you looking at?" because what I'm seeing with my eyes and how I know I am going to paint it are two different things.
Jan Francoeur
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