Oriental tapis

Today I chose the photograph which really resulted in my journey back into art, it was taken in the forest on a cold February morning. I posted the picture onto my blog, some time later fellow blogger Carol asked if she could paint one of my photographs and she chose this photograph.

I liked what she painted and I was inspired to start using photographs as inspiration for art. My photograph and painting are shown below, I thought the colours in my art were like an Oriental rug.

February Colours

Oriental tapis

Both images are in my Made a favorite folder on Flickr.

Link to Carols blog here.

In Brittany every summer there are many marching bands and they parade at the many fetes in the towns and villages. The biggest parade is held in Lorient during the Festival Interceltique, where they play the bagad If you hate the bagpipes you will hate the Breton version too!

Lorient was originally a place for warehouses and shipyards, established there in the 17th century, it was named L'Orient (The Orient). Trading in India was big business and the French East India Company was later founded there. Lorient grew as a port and was badly bombed during World war II since many German submarines were based there.


Submarine in French is sous marin
Warehouse is entrepôt.

Driving Lesson

You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. ~Author Unknown

I spotted this Citroen DS 19 Dinky toy on the back of our TV magazine and so decided to paint a picture of it ~ original nose with single headlights ~ also known as Déesse, or Goddess.

A small piece of French History

President Charles de Gaulle praised the unusual abilities of his unarmoured DS with saving his life during the assassination attempt at Petit-Clamart on 22 August 1962 planned by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry — the shots had blown two of the tyres, but the car could still escape at full speed.

Green Goddess

This event was accurately recreated for The Day of the Jackal.

When I was young I thought that these cars were really ugly!....now I love them...

The French word repérer can be used to spot or locate.
The French word recréer can be used to recreate.

Etymology for the word Paint.

A drop of the pink stuff

I adore that pink! It's the navy blue of India ~ Diana Vreeland

Saignée

I do love a drop of Rosé especially from Provence. The Romans called the area nostra provincia ("Our province") which gave the region its name it was the first Roman province outside Italy. Wine has been made there for at least 2600 years when the Greeks founded the city of Marseille in 600 BC.

Rosé wine is usually produced as a by-product of red wine fermentation using a technique known as Saignée, or bleeding the vats. To produce more color to a red wine, some of the pink juice from the wine must, is removed at an early stage. The red wine remaining in the vats is intensified as a result of the bleeding, because the volume of juice in the must is reduced. The pink juice that is removed can be fermented separately to produce rosé.

Blu's abstract art, based on a fuchia.

Pink fuchia planet

The word for remaining or remainder in French is restant.

The word for a drop of liquid in French is goutte.

That old black magic.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.
Author Karl Kraus

I sat down the other night trying to paint a picture of the forest, but something was wrong and after about two hours, I gave up sloshed some white over it and turned the paper upside down. I looked in astonishment because I could see shapes and colours which looked very like a picture in my library book.A painting by Cezanne, The Chateau Noir!

Link to an image of the Chateau Noir by Cezanne HERE

So I set work again, and finished with a picture that had the same feeling to the image in the book, I later found brighter images on the internet than the colours in my library book.

Une Grande confusion coloree. Cezanne produced many paintings of the château which was built in the 18th century by an industrialist from Marseilles, who manufactured lampblack paint. Apparantly the interior walls and furniture of the château were painted black. As a result, the house was associated with black magic among the local people, who believed that the château was also home to the devil.

The house of the devil!

The unkept grounds were full of pine trees and the house was empty for most the year.

Link to Wikipedia about Cezanne HERE.

You could use the French word négligé for unkept or uncared for.

The word for devil is Diable!

Mystery tours

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. ~Pablo Picasso

I have recently started to paint again, and it must be well over 30 years since I had picked up a brush, several people inspired me to try again, and on the whole I am enjoying it. It is like starting a journey but without an intinery, never really knowing what I will see at the end. A complete mystery.

I started just before we went to the Vendee and have tried my hand at various scenes since the middle of September.

On our short break when we walked around St Gilles Croix de vie I came across this delightful information board it was about an artist Charles Garabed Atamian (1872-1947) who was born in Constantinople.

When he was 13, he was sent to Venice to study at an Armenian school, where he was very interested in painting, so the school administrators had him enroll in the studio run by the teachers Paoletti and Tagliapietra, with whom he studied until 1894.

When he returned home to Constantinople, Charles worked as a designer in a ceramics studio belonging to the court of the sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, however he left two years later because of the persecution of his people (the Armenians) ordered by the sultan. With great difficulty, he was finally able to flee to Paris in 1897-----where he set up his permanent residence.

There are many images of Charles Atamian's work for sale on the Internet.

I don't produce pictures like Charles maybe I am more like Van Gogh, tee hee a bit wild with a glass of wine in my hand!

I am mainly choosing forest scenes since I have so many pictures to work from.

Decembre on the tapis rouge.

Bien Encadre

A Fresh morning

A French word for scene or place is lieu
A French word for enroll or register is inscrire

PS.Many thanks to Carol and Sally for inspiring me to dabble with paint again!

Counting the cost

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. ~Dick Cheney

Yesterday I went with a couple of friends to see two exhibitions. The first was an exhibition of many paintings all done with pastels. This was not an exhibition of local amateurs they were all of a very high standard. Now to make you really appreciate the pictures we were handed a ticket and had to vote for the best. Around and around we went, choosing was a difficult task, eventually I chose a large picture of three donkeys, if I could have bought one that was my favorite, maybe I should have chosen the ballerina, or the coiled rope?

Next we visited another modern building where we viewed many black and white pictures showing us sights of the town in years gone by. Many photographs of buildings destroyed due to the Allies bombing the town were on display for us.

An information plaque explained that a leaflet drop warning the townsfolk to leave the town hadn't hit its target but had showered the surrounding countryside, so many people in Fougeres died.

The entrance fee to both of these exhibitions was free, gratuit! However here is some free art on a local building.

Small details

Viva le coq

The glory of a former work place

Have you got any interesting factory buildings where you live?

A French word for surrounding is environnant.
A French word to point at a target is diriger.