Saturday 19 September 2020
I am doing an exchange at the moment with another painter friend. I go to her house along through the most beautiful villages. I have joined her still life class. It's not really a taught course, more to encourage new thinking around our own practice. That's how I see it anyway. My Friend Jenny Makkinga has a wonderful way with colour. She has lots of boards covered in paint that she doesn't see as finished. They are mostly figurative with all kinds of motifs and have a dreamlike painterly quality combined with beautiful layered colours. She recently began studying colour mostly by buying books by Johannes Itten off the internet. Then she put away the books believing they made no sense to her but it has somehow seeped in. It's the way really when doing anything creative you study and learn techniques then try and drop these things to free you from them. I realised that I have a little strategy for putting in too much detail. I use brushes that are extra thick or thick drawing materials. I began using tiny Rotring pens like needles with black constant ink.
Thursday 5 November 2015
It's been a long summer plenty of sunshine and now the sun comes out and I realise the heat will not last. I watch the sun arrive at different parts of the day in different parts of the sky. I know by 5.30 the sun is low in the sky and the forest will look like it's on fire. I love to take a walk witnessing this each day. Otherwise I feel I lost something.
Thursday 10 September 2015
I have seven young ducks who are very funny. These are perched on the roof. They can only just get up here and flying down is easier. |
I have begun a new painting and it's going quite well. |
Wednesday 8 July 2015
Here you are. Sorry it's been sweltering here. The computer has been a no go. My ducks are growing although I lost one and another I discovered sadly dead after much searching. I take a few days losing a duck but my favourite one a big white bruiser is 'perdu' or lost. I made a little pond to attract animals and grow pond weed. The ducks have discovered it and gravitate towards it and are to be found either in it or near it. I have fruit bushes all around and they like gooseberries, blackcurrants redcurrants, strawberries. I have eaten loads too. I am off jam because I don't like too much sugar. I have given up trying to barricade the ducks from the fruit garden. They work out extraordinary complex ways of getting in...very tenacious creatures.
I photographed this boat in autumn and now again I am impressed this time by the plants there are even trees.
Every year is different here. This year I have really huge Hollyhocks. We have 3 weather systems here. This summer is like Provence. |
I am experimenting with planting things under the tree. It is the only place I can keep watered. |
This is the work of a friend at a small exhibition in a library. It's quite a large painting perhaps a metre tall. |
I have been tipping stuff out of the barns. The stuff at the tip is always very interesting. |
I photographed this boat in autumn and now again I am impressed this time by the plants there are even trees.
I found this spiral iron support in the sheds. |
Brocantes. There have been a few but sometimes too hot and it's too much for people to sit outside all day. I bought this sign from a farmer. |
This year Fete de la Musique in Luzy. Ths little caravan travels round the area and bands play in front of it. |
Thursday 11 June 2015
Flaming June. It's been a wonderful month so far here. It's been hot and dry. I think there may be a bit of rain on it's way but it's just lurking at the edge of the village for now. Swallows are sat on the road, just fledged. They are practising their flying. I keep finding them in the house exploring, looking for new nesting spots.
Swaying grass verges. |
I am having to be a little bit watchful because these troublesome creatures can quickly disappear off. Apparently they go through phases and then settle down. My wireless just about reaches out here. |
I was looking up the painter Elaine Pampilon, link her husband Christopher Marvell does lovely sculptures of creatures and the owls he does are wild. Link I want to do garden sculpture now. We do have plenty of interesting objects around to make things, this is the seed of an idea above. |
My newest pile of plates they are stencilled again and the design Hublon is french for Hops, how lovely being that I used to live in Hoppy Herefordshire. |
Tuesday 19 May 2015
We had a tree chopped down in the sheep field as it was worrying a neighbour who has a house near to it. The logs cut into lengths are great to put around the potage I have. I was imagining rustic raised beds. Doubly good is when you roll them over the slugs have hidden there and then the enthusiastic duck forage them with gusto.
My searches at the Brocantes have turned towards these plates recently. Digoin as they are known as here. The name comes from the place of production in the North East. Very simply decorated by stencils. The one's below date to the last quarter of the 19th Century. You can check online by the marks underneath. They can be bought very cheaply and I think they are charming.
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Digoin Sarreguemines |
They are growing so fast now nearly outgrown there pretend pond and I shall be showing them the actual pond soon. I can't wait to see their reaction.
I am really in love with this cottage. It is on a road and there is a neighbour opposite but otherwise the cuteness of it is too much. |
The countryside here is incredibly beautiful and the roads are empty. |
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