House Portraits Dossier:
Villa Forêt,
Valbonne/Mouans-Sartoux
Villa Fôret, Mouans Sartoux; oil on free-hanging canvas, 170 x 220cms; 2008
The great charm of this house depends a lot on the counterpoint between space and snug; even the large garden feels snug and the house conceals its size in a sequence of homey aspects. From the house you look up into a gently sloping garden curtained at the edges by tall angled pine trees and where even the large pool is discreet, thanks to the slope up. Then, having strolled up by the pool and to the trees, you turn to face north and there beyond the house is a wide horizon of the foothills of the Alps that give the département its name — the Gorges du Loup and the Baus over Vence most specially impressive.
The initial sketches are in a linen volume, 10 x 14". They concentrate on the rhythms and flow within the 'visit' that will inform the finished painting. The challenge here is to combine the sense of space and the sense of home & snug...
THE LINEN SKETCHBOOK
graphite or ink on paper, 10 x 20"
FIRST SKETCHES
pp.2 & 3: a simple plan of things [left], and a first account of the house seen square-on from the garden, with the horizon hills behind...
[left, upright] pp.4/5: a double page image of the pines, looking south-east...
and [right] pp.6 & 7: two first versions of circular angles and lay-out...
pp.8 & 9: two first versions of a wide lay-out...
with pp.10/11: some yellowy begonias in blue ink...
NEXT SKETCHES
pp.13, 15 & 17: working with the 'final' scheme
p.19: the 'final' scheme and on p.23 its rhythmic rationale...
pp.21, 25 & 27: more working within the 'final' scheme
pp.28/28, 30/31 & 32/33 [below, in two versions]:
double-page spreads in the 'final' scheme
THE HOUSE PORTRAIT
oil on canvas