River Fog

River Fog, 20x30 oil on linen

We are still on the Yonne River in Burgundy with this piece in the town of Gurgy that is fresh off the easel. We will call it blue harmony again. The painting I posted a few posts back, see below, was also blue harmony and is not far from this painted scene. You can see this intersection in the distance in Docked Dinghy. I had mistakenly called it "Blue as a Visual Approach" in that post. Not sure what I was thinking as I definitely knew better. Blue Harmony means I added the same color of blue in every color mix used. Blue as a visual approach would have used a variety of blues and the overall color of the painting would have been definitely blue. In blue harmony you see other colors but they all harmonize due to the "mother" color used in everything. I am normally a very graphic style of painter so I have been using the fog to teach myself to soften edges

Docked Dinghy, 24x24 oil on canvas

For those of you who did not read the last few posts, Gurgy was a happenstance stop on our river trip. In France, the lock keepers are government employees. Therefore they work set hours, even if they live right by the lock. We were running a bit behind on this particular day and we knew we would not make it to the lock in time to make it to where we had planned to dock for the night, so we stopped at this tiny place. The pad in front of the dinghy is where you tie up. It was just the dinghy and us that night. But I must say, this little town has provided a plethora of reference material. For an overnight stay I think this latest painting makes five.

The Lock keeper, 30x15, oil on canvas

Above is one of our lock keepers going to the other end of the lock to let us out. Notice the sun! We ran into a lot of fog along the river both morning and evening, which was lovely, but the sun burned it off most days which was even better.

Boats in the Fog, 12x24 oil on panel

Just for fun I will throw in another painting from the river. We were docked in Joigny and surprise, surprise, there was fog when we woke up that morning! This is a quick sketch I did a few years ago. We were seven people in a small yacht type boat. We piloted it ourselves, so not some exotic barge trip. Although we did see working barges.

This has turned into a mini travelogue post but it is rather fun to see the variety of work I have gotten from this little 5 day "cruise" all in one post.