”Autumn Orchard” 2003
A Kathleen Elsey favorite fauve painting
22" x 28" signed by painter Kathleen Elsey lower left SOLD
This painting was made on Fiori Lane, off the Bodega Highway in Sebastopol. The apple trees continue to fascinate me as they change monthly with the seasons. I painted this in early October as the apples were being harvested, leaving many apples to age on the ground below the trees. You can smell the apples in the air if you go to this beautiful place. My intent was to try to capture the graceful majestic apple trees with their golden leaves, red and yellow apples, and dramatic shadows cast across the earth in front of me. I was thinking of my favorite painter, Vincent Van Gogh, as I painted with thick brushes and lots of paint. This is one of my all time favorite plein air paintings.
Influenced by the Fauvists --- especially Van Gogh - and the early California Impressionists, my hope is for my work to have a sense of place that is universally soothing to look at, like the feeling of that fragrant and peaceful autumn day. Eleven years after painting this lovely scene in Sonoma County, I am still greatly influenced and grateful for the French Fauves at the turn of the twentieth century. And now I am a member of the international NewFauves.com, a group of like minded contemporay Fauves joining together to inspire each other and exhibit our paintings together. |
