A Longer Post - Between Landscapes & Figures

(for my work and contact details - visit my site : https://pierremeuriceart.com)
 
   The last weeks, keeping busy at work and working on many things over the weekends... to few time spent on drawing and painting... One says it is never enough anyway, so rather than getting frustrated, I tend to favor the creative time I am left with, and dive in it. 
Traveling to France, recently, I did a couple of drives through the North and Normandie countryside... I forgot how I was attached to the earthy beauty of the autumnal grounds, bushes - the dark browns of the woods, the infinite shades of gray and green and blue, the variations of the sky - curtains of rain, and then, suddenly, some fresh blues piecing the sadness of the atmosphere. I decided to continue my abstracts experiments in pastel, painting some autumnal landscapes from imagination, or color compositions inspired from this trip. 
Here is the first piece of what I hope will be a small series : 

Autumn Landscape - Pastel on Pastelmat
50X60cm

I somehow enjoyed simplifying things on this piece, and start to find some interesting associations between green, brown and violet. One thing I will change though is the paper... I am not a fan of the Pastelmat... It is so soft, and favors delicate layers and touches - I have them, but in the final part of my work... I tend to start with vigorous strokes and impulsives layers, and this paper saturates too fast  to my taste. 
Let's see where the next piece will take us... 
***
   Besides abstractions, I continue my work on Figure and Portraiture... This is something that never goes off me, it is growing instead. I have found in this practice another way to engage with people, to reflect and tell a bit of the drama underlaying Human relations. I will try to participate in some Portrait competition in next January, and will work on a couple of works for the submission. 
I have started with some charcoal study - which may become a more refined pastel in the next couple of months - if time allows, as always... 

Visage Study - Charcoal on Paper
50X40cm

   For this model, I use some photos I buy online... I also have recently organized a photo session with a model, as I was willing to work from my own photos, on a light and an atmosphere I felt... I now need to go through the shots and see what inspires me. Inspiration is the key word here : without it, or without the connection to the model and its story, the portrait tends to be a technical exercise... One needs to dive into deeper feelings to render, an expression, or grab the viewer into the work. The strength of a portrait, to me, is not so much given by the technics, but by what a Human presence will be able to bring to the work, if the impression left by the portrait transcend the very person or the figure depicted to lead the viewer towards deeper feelings, inviting one to the inner energy which motivated the painting and its creation. 
On this, K and I visited the Cézanne portrait exhibition yesterday, at the National Portrait Gallery... I will go there again... Stayed a small hour and was overwhelmed by the power of the works - the early works, marked with technics experiment and a great strength of expression, and the later works, where the Figures are playing some part in some genius compositions, all supporting piece's force of expression, and not the piece supporting the Figure... (one would also find there Picasso main influence on his early Figure works... no doubt...). Yes, Inspiring was the word...