'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, 11 May 2014

Au Revoir Aude

The trip to Arizona in February, mentioned in my last post, triggered a major life change... and we have exchanged the warm ochres and terracottas of southern France for the cool greens, dark stone and peaty earth tones of the Pennines in northwest England where I grew up. So this post is a farewell to my Aude sketching days. I'll be documenting this next phase of my artistic life with a new sketchblog in the next few weeks.

Le voyage en Arizona en février, evoqué dans mon dernier post, a provoqué un grand changement dans ma vie. En effet, nous avons échangé les couleurs chaudes, les ocres et terres cuites du sud de la France pour les verts frais et les tons sombres de pierre et de terre tourbeuse des landes des Pennines au nord-ouest de l'Angleterre où j'ai grandi. Alors dans ce poste je dis "au revoir" à mes carnets de l'Aude. Je vais documenter cette prochaine phase de ma vie artistique avec un nouveau sketchblog dans les prochaines semaines. 


The riverside houses in Quillan have been a favourite sketching subject over the past three years. On this day in February it was grey and rainy but the colour of the roof tiles always warms things up.

Les maisons riveraines à Quillan ont été un sujet de croquis préféré au cours des trois dernières années. En ce jour de février, il était gris et pluvieux, mais la couleur des tuiles réchauffe toujours la vue.



On my return from Arizona, I had a hankering for the red rocks of Sedona so I made another trip to Peyrolles on a bright day in early March.

A mon retour de l'Arizona, les roches rouges de Sedona me manquaient alors je suis retournée aux terres rouges de Peyrolles un jour ensoleillé au début de mars.


In late March, as the days were starting to lengthen, I did two evening sketches of the Aude riverside in Limoux while my daughter was having her piano lesson.

Fin mars, quand les jours commençaient à rallonger, j'ai fait deux croquis sur les berges de l'Aude à Limoux alors que ma fille avait son cours de piano.


And this was my last sketch of the Aude Valley, at least for now. Au revoir Aude!
Et voilà mon dernier croquis de la vallée de l'Aude, au moins pour l'instant. Au revoir à l'Aude !