'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.

Saturday 2 November 2013

Friday Evenings

This year my daughter has weekly piano lessons with a teacher in Limoux, a town I've never sketched before. Limoux is famous for two things: the champagne-like tipple Blanquette de Limoux and its carnival, reputed to be the longest in Europe, that runs every weekend from January to Mardi Gras. It also has some pretty nice buildings, an arcaded central square and an attractive river front along the Aude.

So every Friday evening, after dropping Delphine off, I have just 40 minutes to find a suitable subject, do the sketch and get back to the piano teacher's house for the pick-up. Not long but it's good discipline.

Week 1: Found a parking space near the indoor market and, not wanting to be too ambitious given the limited time, decided to focus on a detail of the entrance to the market hall in ink, no watercolour.


Week 2: Delphine's piano teacher and his wife are also good friends and for the second week's sketch, I stayed on their terrace to draw some weathered terracotta pots sitting on a pair of rickety wooden chairs. No time to paint it on site but I took a photo and added watercolour at home.


Week 3: Had a bit of shopping to do and only had time for a quick pencil sketch of the old bridge (inexplicably called the Pont Neuf) in fading light.


Week 4: Mid-October, chilly and damp and I wasn't really in the mood for drawing. After wandering around the rive droite area, I ventured onto the Pont Neuf (see above) and saw that there was quite an interesting view of the Eglise Saint Jacques, now the Piano Museum. Stood on the bridge and did a quick ink sketch of said building.


Week 5: The last lesson before the half-term holidays. A cool evening, light fading so I headed for a cafe in the main square and sketched the view through the windows, while sipping a kir royale - a glass of blanquette with a dash of blackcurrant liqueur. Pas mal.

7 comments:

  1. Enjoyed watching and reading your weekly sketching adventures

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    1. Thanks Jacqueline, it's so nice to get comments directly on my blog :)

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    2. Yeah, I agree with you - I love when people come to our blogs and leave some comment.
      My first of many visits here.
      Thanks .

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    3. Nice to see you here, Murilo. Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. Great, a good venture to follow, and I am always more acquainted with Limoux than Quillan so will identify more with that which you will now be painting and sketching, hope to see some of Notre Dame de Marceille too

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    1. Thank you :) Good idea about ND de Marceille though I would have to make a special trip... not enough time during the piano lessons.

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