SPRING FROST

Emu Plains | New South Wales | Australia

Spring Frost (After Gruner) | Scott Bennett | 2004 | Pastel on paper | Private collection

Elioth Gruner’s Spring Frost

After several years working digitally, away from making art by hand, I wanted to get back into it. I have long had the desire to make a study of Elioth Gruner’s Spring Frost and felt that this was a wonderful way to warm up.

I intended to make a detailed exploration of the work because I admire the way it is painted. I particularly like his use of brush strokes and the almost abstract colour field in the foreground. I can’t express how much I admire this lovely painting. It’s not the pastoral subject I’m interested in but the light and colour.

I enjoyed working in pastel as I could just use colour directly with no mixing to worry about. I learnt a great deal by copying this work, in fact I enjoyed the process so much I began another version in oil. I happened to be in Sydney several months after finishing the pastel and visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales just to see it again.

I was amazed how dark the original was with a lot more use of a slate blue/grey than I had imagined. I was working from an aged and rather yellow postcard and a large poster purchased from the Gallery both appeared higher in key.

Spring Frost, a close-up I shot of the original painting

The Original – Art Gallery of NSW Collection

Emu Plains/New South Wales/Australia
Elioth Gruner (Australia, b.1882, d.1939)
Spring frost
1919
131.0 x 178.7 cm