Sunday, September 26, 2010

Lynne Windsor interview, part two


Early Morning, below Gordes 12x24 oil by Lynne Windsor

Lynne's interview continues:

L-What inspires you to paint?

Lynne- Honestly, I just love painting! I love everything about painting. I feel as if I was deprived for a long time now I am allowed to do it. I have so much to do. I wish I could clone myself!

L- How do you keep motivated when it gets tough in the studio?

Lynne- Well, I pace. I get up and go to the garden and pull weeds. Sometimes I take a break and get something to eat. Sometimes, I give up...when it's not working I just stop. I give myself migranes when I continue the battle.

L- What is your daily routine?

Lynne- I am up and working in the studio by 10:00. If I am not I start feeling anxious, sort of edgy. I need to be there. I paint till lunch time. A few days a week I go play tennis with my good friend Sue, another English woman. It's mad English women in the noon day sun! Exercise is so good for the brain. I try to make time to do some each day. After lunch/tennis I am back to work in the studio.

L- People admire your ability to create  the mood of the landscape, a special place, very dreamy. Would you summarize how you do this both from a technical standpoint and a mental standpoint?

Lynne- When I paint I always start out with an underpainting of burnt sienna. I like the warmth it provides. Next I add the dark/shadows. Now the push and pull begins. I work mostly with opaque paint in the beginning. I am not a painter to intentionally use the same color in all different parts of the canvas.
I do keep the entire painting soft. I will actually fuzz it and blend so that not hard lines exist. I use glazes to gray down the distance and warm up the foreground.
Each painting has a "mother color." And I find burnt sienna to be very helpful tool to "kill the brightness."
My palette is somewhat traditional- cobalt blue, cerelean blue, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, cad yellow deep, cad red light, cad yellow light, white and two new favorites: garnet red (Lefranc) and Williamsburg's permanent crimson. I also use the transparents: indian yellow and transparent brown oxide.
Lynne painting in her studio in New Mexico
You may look forward to -getting ready mentally and more in Wednesday's blog post.  In the meantime check out Lynne's website and blog. You are in for a treat!

6 comments:

Karen said...

It's so hard to catch up with your blog after being away from the computer for like forever, because there is so much good stuff to look at and absorb, and you give so much here (my thoughts on your 3 yr blog anniversary).
working through...and enjoying it. Great to see what's been going on over here!

loriann signori said...

Thanks Karen! I have missed you! Was your experience wonderful? I will have to check and see if you have posted since returning!

Katherine van Schoonhoven said...

Thanks for the links to Lynne's website and blog. This is inspiring. I love her phrase "kill the brightness." I will think on this more, you can be sure!

loriann signori said...

You are welcome Katherine! Enjoy!

Brian McGurgan said...

Thanks very much for the Lynne Windsor interview, Loriann - she does gorgeous and inspiring work and I appreciate you introducing me (and others) to it. I enjoyed clicking through her website and blog, and visiting her husband's sites as well (his work is beautiful, too). I know that putting together these interviews is a lot of work but you do such a nice job of it. You ask great questions and gain such good insight from your subjects.

Lynne E. Windsor said...

Katherine, I have been meaning to clarify my comment 'kill the brightness' for ages now! To be honest, I feel that I am somewhat schizophrenic about this. I think my work (at the moment) falls into a number of categories, with pastels, I love to use bright colours but when I am doing landscapes, over the years, I have felt strangely odd when using bright colours, or rather I like strong vivid colours but they have to be subtle at the same time... is this possible? I think that's why I like using a mother colour and why I like to glaze. Does this make sense? It's not that I like dull colours, but I don't like colour straight out of the tube.. maybe that's it!