Tree at Voorburg

This oil painting ‘Cubist Spring in Voorburg – 05-05-16’ I started at Studio Brugman, Voorburg, Netherlands. It was King’s Day (Koningsdag). Recently I had completed two drawings ‘Tree at Voorburg – 19-03-16‘ and ‘Tree at Voorburg – 19-03-16’. Why wouln’t pick those as prestudies for me to do a live oil painting session? So I did the whole invention of the forms in oil in Voorburg. However,  the final colors I did back in my studio in Den Haag.

Spring Greens with Madder Rosy Blossoms

After some considerations I decided to contrast Spring greens with madder rosy blossoms. The actual tree is a tree I pass by on bike every day at the Spinozalaan in Voorburg, Netherlands. At first glance it’s just an ordinary tree. However, it had a couple of curved trunks that inspired me to render it cubistically.

Color Scheme

In my view abstracting forms goes hand in hand with abstracting color schemes as well. In this one the bulk of the colors are greens and blues. An impressionistic trick I learned is to also use reds and pinks in order to counterbalance especially greens. Basically I used small touches of them in order to place a ligament of warmer hues throughout the canvas. Thus the greens look even more brilliant.

Open Structure

The threat an artist faces is to enclose the positive form of any kind of vegetation too much. Positive forms can become too tightly packed and basically look nothing but like a big lump. I find Camille Pissarro a good example. He manages to create convincing trees that seem to be totally embedded into their surroundings. This I wanted to emulate through my cubist style as well.

Click here to read abouth this art work being featured in the January 2022 Singulart Cubism collection.

Click part 1, part 2 to read about the sale of two prints (greeting card) through redbubble.com

Click here to read about the sale of a print by lovethewall.com.

Oil on linen (60 x 80 x 1 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers

Sales info: info@corneakkers.com