Au fil de l'eau

Snow in Serres

2012-02-08T11:05:00.000-08:00

With my daughter at music class, I had an hour and a half to devote to sketching. My idea today had been to sketch a rural snow scene but I couldn't find anywhere to park off the road, all the tracks and lay-bys still being too snowy. So I ended up in the square in Serres, a picturesque little village in the shadow of Pech Cardou.

Ma fille en classe de musique, j'avais une heure et demie à consacrer au dessin. Aujourd'hui, mon idée avait été d'esquisser une scène de neige en milieu rural, mais impossible de se garer hors de la route, toutes les pistes et aires de stationnement étant encore enneigés. Je me suis trouvée alors sur la place de Serres, un petit village à l'ombre du Pech Cardou.

Blue & Rust

2012-02-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

I was so interested in how to render the rusting bright blue doors and window frames of my plein air sketch previously posted that I decided to experiment with watercolour on Arches paper. Not a great success... it's a bit overworked in places.
J'étais tellement intéressée à savoir comment rendre les portes et les cadres de fenêtres bleus rouilles de mon croquis plein air précédemment mis en ligne que j'ai décidé d'expérimenter à l'aquarelle sur papier Arches. Pas un grand succès ... c'est un peu "surtravaillé" par endroits.

Rusting Industry

2012-02-02T02:01:00.000-08:00

Entrance to an industrial unit in the old hat factory of Montazels. I was drawn by the contrast between the electric blue paintwork and the rusting iron window frames.
Pilot drawing pen and Derwent watercolour pencils

Entrée d'atelier dans l'ancienne fabrique de chapeaux de Montazels. J'ai été attirée par les contrastes entre le bleu de la peinture et les cadres de fenêtre rouillés.

Efisol factory

2012-02-02T01:57:00.000-08:00

The Efisol polyurethane foam factory, the only industrial facility in this small town, was closed down by the health inspectors a few years ago. Its rusting pipes and tanks are quite an eyesore though it does have its attractions for an urban sketcher.

La seule installation industrielle de cette petite ville de la Haute Vallée de l'Aude, cette ancienne usine qui fabriquait des blocs de mousse en polyuréthane a été fermée par les inspecteurs de la DRIRE il y a quelques années. Bien que ses conduites et silos rouillés soient plutôt laids, c'est vrai qu'ils ont ses attraits pour un croqueur urbain.

Nocturnal Shadows

2012-02-02T01:53:00.000-08:00

The forecourt of this town house in Quillan has a slatted wooden framework over it and the stark white light from the street lamp casts dramatic shadows onto the walls and pillars.
Ink drawing on site, watercolour added at home.

L'avant-cour de cette maison de ville à Quillan est couvert d'une structure à lattes de bois et la lumière blanche du réverbère jette des ombres dramatiques sur les murs et les poteaux.
Dessin au feutre fin sur place, aquarellé à la maison.

Graveyard Cypresses

2012-02-02T01:48:00.000-08:00

Quillan in the foothills of the Pyrenees is backed by a high ridge which is often swathed in a soft milky haze when the sun goes down behind it. The town's cemetery by the river Aude has many old cypress trees and I like the way their majestic forms are silhouetted against the mountain.
Derwent watercolour pencils on location.

Derrière la ville de Quillan s'élèvent les premiers contreforts des Pyrénées, souvent voilés d'une brume laiteuse au coucher du soleil. Le cimetière sur les bords de l'Aude a beaucoup de vieux cyprès et j'aime la façon dont leurs formes majestueuses se détachent sur la montagne.
Crayon d'aquarelle sur place.

Table for Four

2012-01-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

This is the tiny terrace of the house next-door-but-one, sketched looking sideways from my attic window. I've been eyeing this scene for many months as I love the shadows cast by the bars and the wrought-iron furniture. There is always a slight atmosphere of abandonment since the house is only occupied a few days a year when the owner comes over from Ireland. On her last visit she left the cloth under the lamp and it has been blown about and rained on.

La minuscule terrasse de la maison après celle d'à côté, croquée de la fenêtre de mon grenier. Cela fait plusieurs mois que je regarde ce tableau en vue d'en faire un croquis car les ombres des barres et des chaises en fer forgé me fascinent. Il y a toujours une ambiance un peu abandonnée parce que la maison n'est occupée que quelques jours par an. La dernière fois, la propriétaire avait laissé une nappe sous la lampe que le vent et la pluie ont malmenée.

Fifi

2012-01-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

New Year's Day in Fa and it was warm enough to set up my newly acquired sketching stool outside. Dave's 2CV, affectionately known as Fifi, is a familiar sight in the village. She rarely gets an outing these days. An English couple walking past recalled seeing her upside down in a ditch not too long ago. It's a shame they don't make these cars anymore... they're so quintessentially French.

Fa, le Premier de l'an. Il faisait bon, assez chaud pour me permettre d'installer mon nouveau tabouret dehors sur la place. Tout le monde connaît la 2cv de Dave, surnommée Fifi. Elle reste la plupart du temps stationnée au coin de la rue. Deux passants se souvenaient de l'avoir vue renversée dans un fossé il n'y a pas longtemps. C'est dommage que Citroën ne les fabrique plus... elles sont tellement françaises.

Chimneys

2011-12-29T06:36:00.000-08:00

The final sketch from my Christmas visit back home. Delph is one of the villages of slate-roofed, millstone grit houses that make up the rural area of Saddleworth in the Pennine Hills. It was damp and not very bright for eight out of the nine days I was there. Living in the south of France, I am used to strong light and deep shadows creating depth and stark contrasts. Here in Delph on a damp, dark day typical of the area, the views are flattened and lines softened by the misty atmosphere.

Christmas in Delph

2011-12-26T14:48:00.000-08:00

A first for me this year: painting on Christmas Day, a great antidote to overeating and awful telly. This is the view from another window of Mum and Dad's second-floor flat. At twilight the lights in the craft shop window are reflected in the wet road. Delph has won awards for its Christmas lights... many buildings have real Christmas trees with white lights mounted on the walls.

Delph Rooftops

2011-12-22T16:30:00.000-08:00

In Delph for Christmas. View over part of the village from Mum and Dad's second floor window. There was still snow on the hills when we arrived on Monday and the first three days were dark, misty and rainy. This morning the sun came out and there were shadows to enliven my sketch.
Nous sommes à Delph au nord-ouest d'Angleterre pour les Fêtes. J'ai fait ce croquis de la fenêtre de l'apartement de mes parents au deuxième étage. Il y avait toujours de la neige sur les hauteurs quand nous sommes arrivés lundi et les trois premiers jours il a plu. Ce matin le soleil était au rendez-vous pour faire des ombres.

Open All Hours

2011-12-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

I wanted to sketch this old-fashioned greengrocer's shopfront with the clementines shining bright orange in the lights. The only place I could find to park my car was behind a huge plane tree so I could only glimpse part of the fruit display. In the end I decided it made for quite an interesting composition!
J'avais envie de croquer la devanture de cette vieille épicerie avec ses clémentines orange tape-à-l'oeil. Le seul endroit où j'ai pu garer ma voiture était derrière un énorme platane qui cachait la moitié de la vue. Je me suis rendue compte finalement que cela rendait la composition assez intéressante !

Table Bluff Lighthouse, Eureka

2011-12-12T13:47:00.000-08:00

My contribution to this month's Virtual Paintout in Eureka, California. It took a while to find a subject that drew me in this location. The Google Street View cameras seem to have visited this West Coast city on a succession of very grey winter days. The scene I eventually chose to paint was no less drab than any other but I liked the shapes of the lighthouse and the curving pavement with the strip of water behind. I made it a lot more colourful than it actually was - artistic licence.

L'Alhumetur

2011-12-04T15:13:00.001-08:00

Sketched from my car, parked across the square from this busy newsagents and tobacconists. At six thirty in the evening, there is a steady stream of customers, calling in for a pack of Gauloises or a copy of the local paper on their way home from work.

The lighting was a challenge. The front of the building is lit by the street lamps in the square and the two floodlights on the shopfront cast diagonal beams. The style of the lettering caught my eye. I wondered if "alhumetur" meant "match" in Occitan (the local dialect) but I haven't been able to verify that.

Doorstep Jumble

2011-12-04T14:57:00.001-08:00

Sitting on the terrace the other day, enjoying my coffee in the late November sun, my eyes fell on this random collection of objects clustered near the outside tap. We'd been decorating and there was a paintbrush soaking in a pot, a container of white spirit, a jug I use for watering, our wood-chopping block and some pebbles and shells in front of the plant pots. A few months ago you'd have heard me frequently muttering that I never know what to paint but now anything and everything is fodder for my sketchbook.

Quai Saint Pierre, Arles

2011-11-28T04:29:00.001-08:00

My second contribution to this month's Virtual Paintout in Arles. The Google camera photographed most of Van Gogh's town during the winter months, which gave me an opportunity to focus on a favourite subject of mine: bare plane tree shadows cast on the ground and whitewashed walls.

Footbridge at Dusk

2011-11-28T04:22:00.001-08:00

It's getting chilly as well as dark in the evenings now. Did this from the car while Delphine was at dance class. I realise I should have shifted my position to avoid the church tower looking like an extension of the bridge support... oh well.

Drawn on the spot, washes added at home.

Génoises

2011-11-20T13:31:00.001-08:00

On both the houses in this sketch you can see the génoises which are a common architectural feature on old houses here in Languedoc Roussillon and other parts of southern France. These are single, double or even triple rows of canal tiles fitted under the eaves and filled in with mortar. Their purpose, I've learned, is to protect the walls of the building from rainwater, in the absence of guttering. The taller the house, the more rows of génoises are needed to do the job.

At least a dozen people I knew walked past me as I sat sketching on the little bridge at the top of Rue François Fauré this afternoon. Cath, off to walk the dog, whipped out her camera and snapped a photo of me wielding my paintbrush. Despite my bundled-up appearance, it had actually been a lovely afternoon:

White Van

2011-11-13T11:49:00.001-08:00

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.

Potasse d'Alsace

2011-11-11T14:10:00.001-08:00

Now we are well into November, there are not many minutes of daylight left for my weekly sketching slot while my daughter is at dance class. Tonight I took a wander over the footbridge in Espéraza and noticed what I presume is an old agricultural merchants building with a faded Potasse d'Alsace logo with its stork emblem painted on the facade. The light was fading fast but I just had time to get down the pen drawing. The colour was added at home with Derwent coloured pencils.

Street in Arles

2011-11-10T02:09:00.000-08:00

My painting for this month's Virtual Paintout in Arles gave me a few headaches. Cruising round the streets of Van Gogh's town in Google Street View, I was immediately drawn to this archway framing a facade in semi-shadow (just how I like them) with a lone figure in the distance adding a bit of human interest. I'm happy with the composition but not the colours. There's something about that yellow house on the right that doesn't quite work. I was tempted to make it darker but decided to leave it because the picture was beginning to be overworked. What do others think?

Simon's Boots

2011-11-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

Proud of myself for taking advantage of an odd ten minutes, while my husband was getting ready for the market, to sketch his boots, just where they lay, nonchalantly discarded in the hallway when he came in from a gig last night.

Pilot marker coloured later with Derwent watercolour pencils.

Friday Afternoon

2011-11-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

Decided to spend late Friday afternoon sketching in the village instead of translating. It was overcast but not cold. The plane trees behind the houses have turned yellow and orange.

After I finished this first one of the street corner, I did a quick sketch of the houses up Rue Jean Moulin while waiting for my daughter to come down the hill from school.

Then it was time to take Delphine to ballet class and while waiting for her I had a hot chocolate in the PMU café in Espéraza. There was no one in except me, two men having a chinwag over a coffee and the bartender - a delightful old lady who was not behind the bar when I came in but sitting at one of the tables watching TV and knitting something to match her blue rinse. I wish I'd had the courage to draw her but as usual I stuck to things that don't move and the postbox red lamps hanging over the bar were what caught my eye.

Sunday Sketches

2011-10-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

Sunday in the Haute Vallée is market day. Just like in the old days, people flock to Espéraza from the surrounding villages, to buy fresh produce and catch up with friends. Today, the day before Halloween, there was a calm, unhurried atmosphere and the sun shone, though more softly than in the heat of summer. For the first time in the seven years I have been coming to this market, I dared to sit sketching amid all the activity.

In the afternoon, it was still warm enough to sit on the bench opposite Fa café and do a watercolour sketch. The parasols are folded down for the winter now and the trees on the hillside behind are just starting to turn colour.

Antugnac Bridge

2011-10-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

I nearly didn't upload this latest sketch because I wasn't very happy with it at the time. With the bridge angling away from me only slightly and the row of houses behind curving round a bend in the road, the perspective was hard to figure out. When I looked at it later, it didn't look that bad and anyway, on the basis that practising regularly is more important than the result, I shouldn't be shy to post!

Fish Fountain

2011-10-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

Today felt like the first day of autumn proper. The afternoon temperature was a good 10 degrees lower than yesterday and a few drops of rain spattered the windscreen as I drove up to the hilltop village of Montazels. In the middle of the village square is a large fountain with three carved stone fish spewing water from their gaping mouths. Behind stands an elegant three-storey residence with wrought-iron balconies and interestingly shaped windows, the birthplace of the priest Béranger Saunière who was at the centre of the Rennes-le-Château mystery.

Riverside Houses

2011-10-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

My regular Tuesday evening sketching hour this week found me down by the river Aude in Quillan. I sat on a bench and drew the houses on the opposite side of the river. It was probably the last opportunity I will get this year to sketch outside while my daughter is at dance class. It had been a glorious day but the sun had already sunk below the mountain by the time I started and there was a definite autumn nip in the air. On one of the balconies, a man sat sipping his aperitif and was briefly joined by his wife before they both withdrew into the warmly glowing interior of their home. A faint whiff of wood smoke from the first fires of the season hung on the air.

No Entry

2011-10-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

This month's Virtual Paintout took me, via Google Street View, to Sardinia which, like last month's location New Orleans, abounds with the colourful facades and wrought iron balconies I am so fond of painting. What really interests me is the shadows, their shapes and tones. Edward Hopper said: "Maybe I am not very human. What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house". I feel very much the same.

Quillan rooftops

2011-10-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

Found a great viewpoint for my sketching this evening: Quillan castle, high on the hill where you can look down on the red rooftops and the Aude river flowing through.

Young Bororo, Niger

2011-10-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

Another one from my sketchbook, this time the source was a photograph.

Sketchbook

2011-10-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

We had a proper Indian summer this year, lasting all through September and into October. "Une belle arrière-saison" as they say round here. On Tuesday and Friday evenings, I take my daughter to the nearby towns of Quillan and Esperaza for her dance classes and, instead of reading a book while I wait for her as I have often done in the past, I've been taking advantage of the weather to do some sketching. Hopefully I will feel motivated to continue as we move into winter.

Old butcher's shop, Quillan

Shadow on digger, Esperaza

Plane trees in the square, Esperaza

Quillan cemetery

Curly streetlamp, Quillan

Scooter in an alleyway, Quillan

The Big Easy

2011-09-20T01:43:00.000-07:00

Having visited New Orleans years ago, I was inspired to participate in this month's Virtual Paintout, an online art challenge hosted by American artist Bill Guffey. The idea is to cruise around the month's featured city in Google Street View and paint a scene that takes your fancy. The view I chose reflects my enjoyment of the architecture of The Big Easy, with its wrought-iron balconies and colourful facades, and the interplay of light and shadow.

Chilhuacle Negro Chillies

2011-01-31T08:23:00.000-08:00

Still experimenting with different varieties of chillies, aiming for different effects. This one is a stylised rather than naturalistic treatment of the subject in mixed media (watercolour, pencil and watercolour pencils). At first glance, the chillies themselves appeared to be dark purplish brown, almost black, with some rather interesting mottling in a beige colour with orange accents. The light falling on the fruits brought out some subtleties of colour which I accentuated, particularly the blues in the light areas and violets in the shadows.

Nigella Mandala

2010-12-17T02:07:00.000-08:00

The old creative block came back hence the lack of new posts for a while. Happily, my mum's impending birthday gave me an incentive and I returned to familiar territory with another mandala based on the sacred geometry of flowers. This hexagonal design was inspired by the seed pod of the delightful Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena) which graces our terrace every summer.

Curly Red Chilli

2010-10-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

Still working away on the chillies. For this one, I opted for a larger format to try and loosen up my style. The luminous blue shadow was really there, making it look almost like the chilli was floating...

Watercolour, acrylic and black marker on 36x48cm Canson Montval Torchon (my preferred paper for watercolour)

Blue and Yellow

2010-09-18T04:22:00.000-07:00

This is a very rough line & wash of some dried Aji Citron chillies on a blue and yellow napkin. I nearly gave up on it because the checks were so hard to paint but then my beloved pepped up the ambiance by playing the piano in wild fashion and it inspired me to finish up the painting with a few nonchalant flourishes of brush and pen. Definitely not one of my best but it has a certain energy that I like.

Ceci n'est pas un piment

2010-08-27T02:42:00.000-07:00

The upcoming group exhibition at the Espace d'Art is on the theme of Surrealism, Dada and Fluxus. My painting is a take on René Magritte's infamous Ceci n'est pas une pipe which features a realistic rendition of a pipe suspended in mid-air with those words painted underneath. The idea being that, rather than an actual pipe that you can fill with tobacco and smoke, it is in fact a mere representation of a pipe.

As followers of my blog will already know, chillies have recently become a favourite subject of mine. So while it is not a particularly original idea (just search Google Images for Ceci n'est pas...), I thought it was rather neat that the French word for 'chilli' starts with the same two letters as 'pipe' which gave me the added dimension of a play on words.

Acrylic on canvas board, 41x33cm

Water Art

2010-08-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Some photographs I took of light playing on shallow rock pools. They could almost be abstract paintings...

Misty Beach

2010-08-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

A sea mist drove us off the beach and onto the boardwalk at La Franqui, from where I did a quick watercolour. It wasn't quite as deserted as I have depicted it but I'm not very good at people so I decided to leave it.

Stargazer Lily

2010-08-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

Watercolour from one of my own photographs. For my friend Laughing Anna's birthday. Off to the party now!

Millgate Centre

2010-08-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

This is a view of my home village of Delph that I first painted 20 years ago. The Millgate Centre houses the public library and Saddleworth Players amateur dramatics society.

Red Chillies in a Jar

2010-08-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

Another in the chilli series. Bird's eye view of some big dried red chillies in a thick glass jar. Watercolour with a bit of pen and ink.

Garlic Bulb

2010-07-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

Coloured-pencil sketch on Ingres paper.

Orange Chillies

2010-07-26T00:45:00.000-07:00

A parcel arrived in the post the other day, packed with dried chillies of all shapes and sizes, colours ranging from palest yellow through burnt orange and garnet red to dark brown. All the way from Devon. Now shipping chillies from England to the south of France sounds a bit like carrying coals to Newcastle... but here in the foothills of the Pyrenees they are a rarity. And apart from liking spicy food, I've found that they are a perfect still life subject.

Here are my first three line and wash drawings of one of the varieties.

Aquilegia Mandala

2010-06-08T05:51:00.001-07:00

Another in my series of flower geometry mandalas, this one based on the pentagonal geometry of the Aquilegia vulgaris flower found around these parts.

Dried Chillies

2010-06-02T13:19:00.001-07:00

A quick watercolour sketch of some papery, shrivelled up chillies, last year's crop left to dry out on the plant.

Shells

2010-06-02T13:07:00.001-07:00

A totally new departure for me. Believe it or not, this is my first attempt at painting on canvas (as opposed to board) with acrylics.

I picked up a few shells I had collected for inspiration and developed the spiral shapes across the canvas. Not sure that the composition works but there are elements that I like. It was fun to do because I forced myself to keep the drawing loose and just let the brush sweep in spiral shapes.

Pink Garlic

2010-06-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

I realised it was almost a year since my last post. Just to show I haven't been completely idle in the art department, here is a drawing I did in February. Pen and ink and coloured pencil on Ingres paper.

Iris Mandala

2009-07-03T05:32:00.001-07:00

Something different this time... The underlying geometric structure of nature has long been a source of fascination for me and nowhere is it more apparent than in flowers.

An iris seen from above displays perfect three-fold geometry which I thought would translate well to a stylised painting in the form of a mandala.

Aquilegia Alpina

2009-06-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

This was painted specially for a friend's birthday. While working on it I was overanxious about capturing the exquisite blue and delicacy of the petals and to my mind this is reflected in a slight woodenness in the flower. My favourite part is the buds against the dark background.

La Maison Jaune

2009-05-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

Shadows cast on French houses are an obsession of mine and this might be the beginning of a series. There are a few technical slip-ups in this painting and it's not as loose as I would have liked, but overall I feel as if I'm making progress in handling the medium and developing my own style.

Tyres & Tiles

2009-05-22T05:14:00.000-07:00

In my wanderings round the village one afternoon, I came upon this heap of 'junk' - discarded tyres propped up against a wall, ragged bits of doors and shutters, broken canal tiles neatly stacked in front, and the whole thing overgrown with ivy. The perfect outdoor still-life arrangement. Working from a photograph, my aim was to stay loose with both the initial pencil drawing and the paint.

May Day Muguets

2009-05-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

I'm finding that the commitment I've made to post my artwork on this blog is really a great incentive to keep working. I can feel myself loosening up with each piece of work; not necessarily in my painting style, but in my attitude to making art. It's true what they say, that the way to shift a creative block is to just create something, anything, regularly, preferably every day.

My latest is another plant study: for May Day in France it's traditional to give lily-of-the-valley ('muguet' in French) for good luck. A friend brought us a beautiful specimen in a slim terracotta pot. What prompted me to draw it was the curving forms of the leaves. The final result is basically a watercolour with some pencil drawing on top to emphasise the plant's graceful lines.

Green Strawberry

2009-04-29T05:39:00.001-07:00

It was an exciting moment for my daughter and me when we noticed that our two strawberry plants were starting to bear fruit. My eye was caught by their broad, fine-veined leaves shivering in the breeze and the dangling fruits bobbing about like the nodding heads of elves. Line & wash on Canson Montval Torchon watercolour paper.

Bella

2009-04-27T07:21:00.001-07:00

Today's offering is a tonal study of our resident feline. Black and white Conté crayon on Ingres paper.

Lilacs & Mailboxes

2009-04-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

The inspiration for my first post was the profusion of lilacs growing all over the village this spring. The style is quite loose for me, which is what I was aiming for. I often like to draw into watercolour with black ink but in this case I was glad I resisted the temptation.