'Aller au fil de l'eau' means to go with the flow. It is also, appropriately, the name of the café in the small French village where I live. On the terrace, the atmosphere is relaxed, life seems to mosey along no faster than the river that slips lazily by. In spring and early summer, conversations are often accompanied by a chorus of croaking frogs. Creating this blog is some kind of commitment to take brush or pen or pencil in hand every day and make art. As Julia Cameron says: "...creativity is not a marathon event that we must gird ourselves for, whacking off great swaths of life as we know it to make room for it. Creativity is not aberrant, not dramatic, not dangerous. If anything, it is the pent-up energy of not using our creativity that feels that way". Not making art is like trying to stop the flow of the river. I surrender to the flow and watch where it takes me.

Sunday 13 November 2011

White Van


The village was rockin' last night with the blues gig at Café de Fa, back to its usual quiet self this afternoon. I rarely put parked vehicles in my sketches, let alone people, because they have a habit of moving. This white van looked like it was there for a while however so I took a risk and managed to finish it before the owner came back. And what do you know, it belonged to Uncl'Stf, the blues man from last night.

3 comments:

  1. I just found your comment on my blog, that seems to have been there for awhile, and wanted to say thanks. I've been looking around your blog and am enjoying it immensely. I just started doing line and wash recently and love the freshness of it. Your site makes me want to rush right home from work and start drawing/painting. Very inspiring. And I love your cars!!!! Janell

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  2. You have such a keen sense of architecture, light, perspective... it's all right here. C'est superbe!

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  3. Janell, thanks so much for visiting my blog. I'm comfortable with line and wash because the emphasis is on drawing rather than painting, and it's great for urban sketching. I've been trying to loosen up in my painting however and in my contributions to Virtual Paintout have resisted the temptation to use the pen. I so admire your wonderfully loose, vivid watercolours! Somehow I find it hard to "let go" enough to achieve a more exciting result.

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