Back to the Future

Fields of Linen near Tailleville

Fields of Linen near Tailleville (detail)

Park Path in St. Aubin-sur-Mer

St. Aubin Park (detail)

St. Aubin Park (detail)

Trees in St. Aubin-sur-Mer

St. Aubin Trees (detail)

The Road from Douvres to Caen

The Road from Douvres to Caen (detail)

The Road from Douvres to Caen (detail)

Fellow Art Lovers:

You haven't heard from me for a while, and there's a reason. I'm posting this new entry from France, more specifically from Normandy. You know that landscapes of Normandy, where I spend my sumers, are important to me. I hope you like these landscapes, because Normandy is one of the most beautiful areas in France (There are many.), and I've been trying for years to capture the beauty of the fields, the trees, the villages, the skies. I hope I succeed in giving an idea about the beauty.

Okay, fine, but why, you could ask, haven't you posted a new entry? Well, it's taken quite a while to get a new high-speed Internet line installed. And, of course, I have to have something to show you and to tell you. Which leads me to my subject. Back to the Future.

All fall, winter and spring, I've been focusing on scenes in Philadelphia with people. Well, doing landscapes is another ball of wax. Of course, I've run into a few challenges, like the famous weather in Normandy, which even in summer includes cold, rain and wind. But I also have to pull my mind and my senses back to Normandy, back to the world of landscapes, to work the way I want, to get the ideas across that I want.

I've talked about those ideas a lot. Nature is just so beautiful here. Sure, I can write about it. But my job as a painter is to show it.

Please let me know if you think I'm getting some of these ideas across in my paintings. Please remember, that you can click on any image, and you'll get a lot more detail. This will help, because photos just can't get the images across.

In some cases, the more dramatic the image, the harder it is to paint, on a very practical level. For example, I was out on the roadway that goes from the small city of Douvres-la-Delivrande to the major city in Normandy, Caen. The wind was blowing, and the trees were shifting and rustling and blincking in the wind. They are big trees, but the power of the wind shifted them all to the same side, and at the same time, formed rivulets in the grass in the fields. Well, guess what that does to your canvas on a portable easel. You have to get clever to keep things in place. But there's no way of forgetting about the power of the wind for your painting when you're in the middle of it.

And the more you are outdoors, en plein air, the more you think and try to develop more and more ways to show what you consider so beatuiful, trees in the wind, bending grass, the clouds shifting across a blue sky, the more you succeed. I hope to succeed more and more.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks for listening.

William Kosman