EVENING, River Aveyron Painting

I live in SW France in the little known " département" of the Aveyron which is part of the larger Occitanie region; this new name encompasses the two regions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrenées. I moved here from Tuscany, where I have lived for many years, just four years ago I am principally a landscape painter and I love to work "en plein air", when I can. With good reference from my painting experience outdoors, I also work my ideas up from my sketches, photographs and small oils onto larger canvases in the studio. I used to always paint large canvases in situ outside, but I eventually found it was very good to remove myself from the view after a while, painting in a looser way using my visual memory of the moment. Apart from anything else, the weather would often change completely in the middle of my painting and I would have to finish it in the studio anyway. Coming back to a painting in the calm of my studio, I feel I can get a better idea of the fleeting moment and treat the canvas as a painting and not a photographic image of what I had been looking at. I also love painting still-life which I mostly do in the winter and these paintings also range from small to large canvases. My recent exhibitions have been in London, but I am now looking at future possibilities in France for exhibiting my work, as well as trying Saatchi Art online. It's all a new experience for me!