This is a very small palette knife study done after a picnic beside the road with a view of some interesting Rocks at Bagnols-en-Forêt in Provence, in the south of France. We were on our first holiday down there 1964 staying in a caravan (trailer) on the property of the parents of one of my schoolmates. Even though I was only eleven at the time, I appreciated the magic of the palette knife and its ability to put down whole swatches of oil paint in a single stroke. What I didn’t appreciate until much later, was the true magic of the artist to subtly combine the colours on her palette before laying them out on the canvas to render both the varied colour and texture of the rocks in that single stroke. I was always very fond of this painting and over the years would compliment it whenever I came to visit. My mother was very generous and gave me the painting some twenty years later (see the note on the back) even though she too was fond of it and the memories from that day. To be fair, she had also painted a copy of it and had given that to my brother.

Additional information:

Picture of notes on the back.