New Triptych - Maritime Alps

 I have been working on a new triptych, again taking up a large part of the north wall in my attic studio. I worked out the composition in white chalk on kraft paper and then started gluing newsprint on the rock and mountain areas to create some texture before I started painting. This is a detail of two of the climbing figures.

And here is a detail of the child figure at the far right of the triptych.

This is a detail of the reaching mother figure.

I started off painting with some blue, the water around the rocks and behind the figures leading to the mountains in the distance. The mountains in the distance are the Maritime Alps, the painting inspired by our visits to Antibes. While I was painting I was thinking of the work of Betty Goodwin, specifically her figures in water which I admired greatly in the 1980s and of Jean Charles Blais, whose work I first came across this summer at the Picasso Museum in Antibes.

I keep referring to the painting as Maritime Alps, so I am sure this name will stick. I like it - not just for the mountains in the background, but for the figures climbing the mountain of rocks. With the xmas season soon to be in full swing, I am not expecting to get a lot of work done on this in the coming weeks, but the painting will look at me every time I go up to the attic, so it will stay in my thoughts.