The Little Gallery, St.Emilion

I have just returned from a few days in St. Emilion, posibly the most famous town  in the heart of the Bordeaux wine region - certainly very pretty, very popular, crammed with restaurants and wine shops (apparently over 80 at last count). 
However, my reason for being there was to hand over a pastel to Elena at the Little Gallery, who had seen my paintings at the pastel exhibition in St. Aulaye this August and who expressed an interest in displaying them. It was a great experience to have my work hanging with artists of the calibre of Roy Petley and Vicente Romero.
The photographs show me emerging from the gallery looking not too smug, I hope, and another where you can just make out my pastel of a pitcher with a hellebore in the window display.

Vicente Romero

I have already posted on Vicente Romero on artistsinpastel.com. I am returning to this artist because I had the pleasure of meeting him in Saint Aulaye in the Dordogne last summer. Our meeting turned into an interview, which evolved into an article in the Pastel Journal, and this has just appeared in the August 2012 issue.
The magazine is already on its way to subscribers, should appear in the shops soon, but it also available as a digital download at http://www.northlightshop.com/pastel-journal-august-2012-digital-download-v9088/?lid=pasjcnl071012&et_mid=566757&rid=2791283
Overall it's an excellent issue, including not only Vicente Romero, but also Ken Gofton on Michael Norman, Aaron Schuerr on Sheila Rieman, and a demonstration by Sarah Blumenschein on her approach to still life. Unmissable.  Incontournable.

Pitcher and moth

It is July 3 in Ireland, and since my last post it has not stopped raining. On the bright side there's no gardening to interfere with painting.

This pitcher is giving great inspiration. The honeysuckle was growing in the garden, and the elephant hawkmoth is a species I have raised from larval stage. I decided to combine the lot in a composition that is not outlandish, zoologically speaking - the hawkmoth visits honeysuckle in the evening.


First sketch. The layout and placement are sketched fairly loosely with pastel pencils. I have already started to develop the blossom.

In order to get an idea of the contrast and too allow for a dark background for the stamens, I have rubbed black pastel pencil in firmly around the flowerhead.



This is the completed sketch and block in. It needs to have the dark background added soon to finalise the colour contrast.

This image is showing me that the colour of the back of the leaves is too light.

This is a close-up of the pitcher. It has more colour than my previous treatments of the subject.

This is where I've left it for now. It will need some refining, but it can sit in the dark for a while, until  I view it afresh. The painting is on Clairefontaine's Pastelmat, 11 x 14 ins.

Le Palais Briaud II

Interior, Palais Briaud  © Niall O’Neill

I think I'll stop now. Did some work on the doors, panels and knots; added some shadow; and refreshed the flowers on the table; repainted the lampshade; and "distressed" the wallpaper on the right. The photo was taken with a flash so it's a bit washed out, but it's been raining so hard in Cork today it's like being in Seattle, and there's no daylight to speak of.

Summer shows in France 2012

The French Pastel Society has three shows coming up this summer and autumn, in Saint-Florent, Feytiat, and Montluçon. Vicente Romero is the guest artist in Saint-Florent; he is also the guest artist is Saint-Aulaye in the Dordogne, where the Salon International du Pastel takes place from August 2 to 26th. (On a personal note, I have two paintings juried into this show - the two still life paintings on this site that feature the old brass pitcher).
There is also Salon du Pastel en Bretagne from18 August to 2 September 2012 and the Art du Pastel Rhône-Alpes, 5th to 16th September. So plenty of top-class artists to be seen no matter where you are in France.

La Société des Pastellistes de France a trois spectacles à ne pas manquer cet été, à Saint-Florent, Feytiat, et Montluçon. Vicente Romero est l'invité d'honneur à Saint-Florent; il est également l'invité d'honneur à  Saint-Aulaye en Perigord, où le Salon International du Pastel aura lieu du 2 au Août 26.
Vous ne devez non plus manquer  le Salon du Pastel en Bretagne du 18 Août au 2 Septembre 2012 et l'Art du Pastel Rhône-Alpes, du 5 au 16 Septembre.

Le Palais Briaud

Le Palais Briaud is an Italianate mansion overlooking the village of Varades, just north of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil on the River Loire. It was built sometime in the 1850s or thereabouts by a French railroad magnate who made his fortune building railways both in France and in Italy (hence the architecture). We found the palace in Alec Sawdays special places to stay; it is a bit run down, and some outbuildings are entirely in ruins. But the main house is still very fine, with many original features and furnishings. 

The painting is of a small corner of the first floor landing, which stretches from front to back of the house with the bedrooms off; there are at least two small sitting rooms, this being the open one. I thought it made a useful still life - I like to "find" them instead of setting them up. There is still work to be done on the doors in the background; the way the light fades from left to right is partly deliberate, but the camera has exaggerated the effect the the right side is not so pallid in reality. The two small paintings in the top right corner are unidentifiable in my reference photos, but I painted a pair of vintage locomotives, in the spirit of the original owner. The support is Clairefontaine's pastelmat, 27 x 19 ins.

Vase on locker

I had a photo that I took of the bedside locker in France with a cheap old vase picked up in a brocante, and some dahlias from a neighbours garden. The support is ArtSpectrum sanded (and wettable) paper.
Initial block in was with Derwent Carmine for the dahlia, Rembrandts for the background and Carbothello pencils for detail over Schminke soft greys for the porcelain and the locker.

Nearly there at this point. Needs a few missing details on right leg of locker, dahlia must be sharpened etc. I found that the Schminke is so sofe it has taken up all the tooth and when I tried to work further on locker edges and contiguous background the support was not at all receptive and began to get very sulky, losing all tooth and refusing to accept any pastel at all. I tried masking off the affected area and spraying with fixative, but that was not very useful; so I ended up by brushing off all pastel from around the affected area and painting a thin layer of acrylic gesso on the support. This gave me the tooth I needed to finish.