Correa

Sorry it has been awhile since I have posted anything, but I am have been busy recuperating from my trip.  Fatigue caught up with me and I have had to rest for the last few weeks, but I am getting back on track now and have completed a new painting.

After having a break from my native flower work, I was going to start back by finishing my second Grevillea painting, but I wasn’t game to start on such a big and important work, so I decided to do a nice quick painting to limber up again.

I still have another drawing for the Paris journal and that too has had to wait, but all will be completed soon.

Karen

Wisteria

Wisteria

Here is another street scene from Sancerre.  I just loved the tiny, narrow streets and the lovely stone houses with the shuttered windows.  It was the first time that I had seen shutters being used in a functional way.  Most shutters I have seen have been purely decoration and never moved.  I also loved the window boxes and pots that decorated the outside of these dwellings.  Our conditions are too harsh in Australia for window boxes to grow so well.  Out summers are too hot and the plants just get baked in the heat and are never as lush and abundant as these were, even in spring.

When I walked past this wisteria vine outside one of the wineries, I was fascinated by how it looped and twined around itself, with just a few flowers left and the leaves starting to sprout.

I have one more drawing to go.  I am trying to choose the photos and mementos that will fill up the rest of the journal and it will be done.  I am so excited about it, I have never had such a great reminder of a trip before.

Karen

Looking Down on Sancerre

Sancerre

This is a view from a tower in Sancerre down onto the town and out to the vineyards below and beyond.  Now I have cheated with this painting.  This is from a photo Grace and Tomi took from the tower at Sancerre.  (Thanks Grace for sharing this) I never got to the top of the tower so I am so happy to be able see the view through their eyes.

I love the way that you look down onto the houses and you get to see the shapes of the roofs.  These are not the straight roofs we get at home, but slightly wobbly, higgledy-piggledy roofs, cramped together roofs that have a much more organic feel.  These contrast nicely with the smoother fields beyond and the vault of sky above.

I feel I captured the roofs well and the fields beyond, but somehow I have lost the feel of the town being much higher than the fields below, I will need to ponder what is missing or if anyone could give me a clue I would be grateful.  I sure have pushed my boundaries on perspective work on this trip.

Karen

 

Tootling aroung the French Countryside

French Chateau

While I was in Sancerre we went for a drive on a beautiful sunny day.  We had no plans in the particular just followed the Loire River downstream.  This is what I call tootling, when you just jump in the car and start driving, stopping here and there to soak in the sites and take a few photos.  It is always fun, but so much more so in another country, for their everyday is so different.  It makes you more aware of the simple things around you and the beauty they hold.

We came across this vista on our way home and it was so perfect we had to make yet another stop.  I love the fact it shows the rolling countryside, the little fields, ( we have large paddocks in Australia), the lushness of spring and the unexpected site of this old Chateau.  I couldn’t figure out what the white flowers were in the foreground, I thought they might have been Queen Anne’s Lace but when I got a closer look it turned out to be Angelica.  I never would have thought to see that growing wild, but I am pretty sure that is what it was, it had the glossy leaves.

I painted this picture in the plane, and found that has some unique dangers.  Those of you who have flown more than me would know what I am talking about. The pressure in the plane does funny things to your pens.  My water brushes gushed water everywhere when I first used them as did one of my ink pens.  Luckily no harm done, but it was interesting learning experience.

I am getting over my jetlag and getting back to work, luckily I have still got work on my journal to do, it keeps my holiday alive for a little bit longer.

Karen