Thursday 23 July 2015

#63 / Sunflowers




#63 / Sunflowers

These cheery flowers are everywhere now adding an extra splash of colour to the Provencal landscape and I feel it is my duty to have a bash at painting them.
I don’t know what it is about Cadmium yellow, but whenever I use it I seem to get the stuff all over me. I have also found it on the car seat and on one of my shirts which was hanging on the washing line.
Vincent Van Gogh springs to mind (rather predictably) whenever I set up a still life or paint a landscape when the subject matter involves sunflowers, cypress trees or fields with crows.
I wonder if any artist after Van Gogh has managed to paint the sunflower without the specter of those famous paintings by the Dutchman hanging over them?

Monday 20 July 2015

#62 / Pattison




 #62/ Pattison

Unfortunately the legs of the table in the studio buckled under the weight of too many bits and bobs so I’ve had to re-arrange most of the studio to find surfaces on which to put jars for turpentine as well as all the other paraphernalia that goes along with painting in oils. I found an old shutter in the outbuildings which is now my bits and bobs table. It also serves quite well as a surface for still life paintings.
We bought this strange pattison on the roadside last night at Puget on our way beck from Cucuron. It is a sort of Siamese pattison with conjoined fruit from one stem.

Thursday 16 July 2015

#61 / Butch



 #61 / Butch

Here is one of our cats. The fat one. I say fat… this is not entirely true as he has just come back after having disappeared for TWO weeks. Yesterday we took him to the vet to have him checked over and to have his (overdue) vaccination booster. He has spent the last few days sleeping in this fruit crate, no doubt dreaming of his antics or whatever close shaves he may have gotten into.

Tuesday 14 July 2015

#60 / Spectator




#60 / Spectator

Last weekend saw the third annual Feria at Cavaillon. A celebration of the Melon and the Bull… Over three days the town was taken over by an orgy of Melon eating, Abrivados, Courses Camarguaise, and an introduction of a ‘person’ into the Order of Knights of the Melon… which sounds a little Monty Python to me and I’m sure that Michael Palin would have appreciated the absurdity of it if he’d travelled to this corner of the world. Though who am I to scoff at it…
This morning we drove into Cavaillon to get our shopping before the shops closed for the day (it being the 14th July) He saw a poster of the Feria still on one of the advertising panels. We missed the Abrevado this time - which is his favourite events during the Feria, so he asked hopefully if we would still be able to go along to see another ‘Avocado’…
This event was a ‘Course’ at the Arene in Cavaillon. We arrived in time for the second half and saw three bulls taking on the Rasteurs of the Club Taurin Paul Ricard de Cavaillon. Entrance was free, but I was still stung on the finger by an inquisitive wasp which seemed to have the same fondness for Orangina as my son does. This particularly athletic bull spent most of his moment in the spotlight jumping behind the red painted wooden hoardings meant for protecting the Rasteurs and the crowd and making circuits of the arena.

Tuesday 7 July 2015

#59 / Ancien Pont de Mallemort



#59 / Ancien Pont de Mallemort

The bridge which takes us over the Durance to Mallemort runs alongside this older one which is now closed for safety reasons - the planks of wood which form the road are twisted and cracked, so there is are three metre tall concrete walls blocking the way at either side of the river.
When I showed this painting in our village a few years ago, the Mayor kindly visited and told me the story of how he and his friends (in younger years) used to walk along the beams which ran along under the length of the bridge as a dare… reminds me of that scene in Saturday Night Fever…
There is a sign which for years confused me slightly. It reads Interdit de Fumer I always thought it meant that you weren’t allowed to smoke on the bridge which seemed rather unfair and a little over the top. That was until my better half pointed out that Fumer not only means ‘to smoke’, it also means ‘to manure’ (that’s obviously for the horses) so that gives you an idea of the age of the bridge.

Thursday 2 July 2015

#58 Glanum


#58 / Glanum

We've been twenty four hours without proper internet use so this is a day later than I had hoped... 
Glanum is a magical place tucked away in a ravine on the road from St. Rémy de Provence to Les Baux de Provence.
I have tried painting the remains of the Oppidum once before but that was after my son was born and I was a little distracted so I never got around to finishing it. Now I live in the same region as this historical site, I have no excuses. I have to say I struggled rather with this one. The tree behind the columns looks like it has been blasted for years by the mistral and I tried to give that impression. I used lots of palette knife work here but with the heat and the flies buzzing at me, I think I wobbled a few times! 

Sunday 28 June 2015

#57 / 'Red Beach' Santorini, Cyclades, Greece




#57 / 'Red Beach' Santorini, Cyclades, Greece

With the tense negotiations and a referendum due to take place in Greece on the future of their economy, I wanted to put some old paintings up which haven’t appeared yet on the internet (not that this is going to help them in any way… just to show that I am thinking of them)
We have been to the Cyclades a number of times on holiday and love it there, specifically Naxos and Santorini. The Tavernas, the Ouzeria, the sea, the people and the language with its soft plosives and melodic intonations make such a wonderful cocktail that draws one back time and time again. This is a painting of ‘Red Beach’ near Akrotiri (the site of a Minoan Bronze Age settlement buried under the detritus from the Theran volcanic eruption of 1500BC). It’s a strange place with black and red cliffs behind, dark volcanic ‘sand’ and plasticy umbrellas with matching sun loungers.