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an embroidery

santons de provence

technique : oil on canvas, layering/glazing technique
canvas gallery wrapped, edges painted, ready to hang

"an embroidery" designs the general aspect of this painting,
while its subject, "santons de provence", are the small figurines in the very old tradition of south of France, they are very simple and expressive, the people represented are handworkers, peasants, folk coming to the christmas-child

This for the inspiration for this painting

Technique :
For this painting, I had an idea : I wanted to first paint a very simple and soft-textured image, until nearly "finished", and then to begin to try what many ancient painters did : obviously they came back and re-worked the complete "background", once again, to "re-write" for instance the grounds, the earth, the flowers, in a sort of tapestry. Some of them were specialized in this. ... Then of course, you have to come back onto the whole painting, to adjust all details together ! (:-)

in this direction, but first very modestly, I tried to find, after the painting was nearly done, a way of expression to melt/wake-up the whole background - it was already very soft-melted, but I wanted to give it more life and depth

so I dared to paint some lines, hoping to reach something in this sense

I needed really "courage" this time because the painting was actually finished...
... and was in a first time desoriented, then encouraged, then definitely happy once the "foreground" colors were re-worked to get more intensity, and have a chance to respond strong enough to this tapestry-looking / embroidery-looking heavy surface

I am happy with the result, - for me it was a surprise : - because the ground has acquired a depth much much more than expected, while remaining very quiet, very soft !

This is a new tool, and a further tiny step in direction of a multitude of details which I admire so much on the old paintings, giving them the generous melted softness of a tapestry while using very strong colors !

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