The old trees

It was good to go do some plein air painting on Sunday (not this one, the 19 January). The weather was cold but dry. I was weary of the wind as a gust of wind can blow-up your canvas from the easel and ruin hours of work, but it did not happen.

The old trees – Oil on canvas (16 x 12) by Benoit Philippe

There is something special about capturing nature on site. You get a more concise vision, a more coherent painting. As you have less time at your hand (the light is changing fast at this time of the year), you have to concentrate on the design and simplify your brush work.

For this painting, I used only three hog brushes: one flat, one round and a filbert - No rigger or small pointy brush.

My palette reduced to eight colours:

• Titanium White


• Cadmium Yellow Pale


• Cadmium Red


• Alizarin Crimson
• Cerulean Blue


• Phtalo Blue


• Ultramarine Bleu


• Bloxx green (equivalent to Viridian Green)

You will note that there is only one green. To compensate, I introduced an additional blue (Phtalo Blue is not one I generally use, but it gives some beautiful deep greens). Also, I didn’t use any earth colour. This is probably the influence of a recent article I wrote on Monet’s palette.