'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.

Thursday, 30 January 2014

Colours of January

Next month I travel to Sedona in Arizona with its impressive red-rock landscape, very similar to the area near the village of Peyrolles where I live in the Haute Vallée de l’Aude. On a clear sunny afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I went up to there to do some sketching in preparation for my upcoming trip, when I hope to do a travel sketchbook.


This week by contrast, the rain has resulted in much more muted colours. The abandoned Chateau de Cazemajou, which sits on the hill overlooking Couiza, has been tempting me to sketch it for years. Last Wednesday it was raining but I had an hour to spare so I found a place to park the car, in the tiny container park next to the railway track, from where the view of the chateau was crisscrossed by telegraph wires and power lines.  

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