Jacqueline’s Blog

Watercolor Painting In the Small Villages of Provence

Watercolor Painting In the Small Villages of Provence

Even though I have left the sunny, warm days of southern France and making my way home, I am still holding on to the essence of Provence.  I already miss the rich morning coffees, the happy faces of the students in the workshop, the lyrical “Bonjours”, the scent of lavender in the air and the friendly smiles of all we meet.  Our last couple of days of the workshop were spent in some very off-the-beaten tourist paths and quiet painting sites.
 
This morning, instead of my brisk walk to St. Remy de Provence for a fresh baguette, I drove down a six lane highway in search of a good cup of coffee.  I am currently in Poughkeepsie, New York for a very special event.  My oldest daughter is graduating from Vassar College tomorrow and I have joined my family here to celebrate this joyous occasion.  It is always bittersweet to leave France!

Having fun exporing mixed media journaling

Painting in the quite hilltop village of Egalieres

Looking towards Les Alpilles

A friendly guy takes our photo and cleverly gets in it too

The cute Roman chapel, St. Sixte, built in the 12th Century

Very cozy French restaurant, La Pitchoune

Cheese!

Painting in a vineyard with an beautiful backdrop
Les Baux de Provence

Les Baux de Provence

The Mistral has arrived for a few days.  Our painting site is Les Baux de Provence and we try to find a painting spot out of the biting wind.  During the Middle Ages Les Baux de Provence became the seat of a powerful feudal lordship that controlled 79 towns and villages in the vicinity. The ruler claimed ancestry from the Magus king Balthazar and placed the 16 pointed Star of Bethlehem on their coat of arms.

I found a sunny spot to paint but it was still windy!

Our picnic lunch site at the upper end of the village.  Sunny and sheltered

The view of the old castle from the vineyards below.

Helen & Marie exploring Les Baux de Provence

Cute street

A Peek Inside Our Provence Watercolor Journals

A Peek Inside Our Provence Watercolor Journals

We have been busy painting on location at some wonderful towns in Provence.  Our afternoons are pleasantly spent catching up in our watercolor journals.  We have our favorite spot under the honeysuckle vines at our lovey Hotel du Soleil where we play with some mixed media and work on our watercolor paintings.  For the last two days we are experiencing La Mistral!

Painting Water Reflections in Isle sur la Sorgue & the Cafe Waiter Race

Painting Water Reflections in Isle sur la Sorgue & the Cafe Waiter Race

My cousine, Marie, has joined us from Paris.  What a sport!  She loves all the crazy mixed media ideas I have.  Got to love that!

The River Sorgue surrounds the charming town, Isle sur la Sorgue, as if to hug it. Walking along the canals you will notice how they run between the narrow ancient streets. There are little bridges to cross and great wheels to look at with mossy blades turning in the river.  It is also a wonderful place to paint reflections. We find a fabulous restaurant, Les Terrasse du Bassin, which turns out to be a perfect spot for enjoying the cafe as well as the perfect painting spot for painting on location.  The river seems to be calmer here so the reflections on the water are perfect for painting.

The view across from Les Terrasses du Bassin with wonderful reflections in the water
Helen’s wonderful painting of the reflections at our favorite spot.
Sunday can be a fun day in St. Remy de Provence and this particular Sunday is the local waiter race. 

Waiters dressed up as chickens race too!

 
Glasses on the trays are are filled with liquid at the beginning of the race.  They are then measured at the ed of the race and lose of liquid is counted against the waiter.
Just a question for you – How does one walk on these cobble stone streets in these shoes????


Following in the Footsteps of Van Gogh

Following in the Footsteps of Van Gogh

One of my absolute favorite places to paint on location (in the world!) is the Saint Paul de Mausole Monastery.    The grounds are full of gardens including a lovely lavender field and a few sundials.  This was the home of Vincent Van Gogh during his very troubled time of May 1889 to May 1890. Vincent’s small room had a window looking out over the gardens behind the buildings.

We use our library voices once we enter the grounds because we automatically experience a feeling of reverence and awe.  We are literally walking on the same grounds where Vincent Van Gogh walked, stood and painted.  He lived here for a year and produced almost 150 paintings! 

Painting out back
The lavender rows gave us great practice on perspective!

Our lesson for the day was how to draw and paint arches.

Suddenly a flock of French school children descend upon as and give us painting advice.

 

Exploring the Luberon

Exploring the Luberon

First thing – Coffee!
This day is absolutely gorgeous!  Today we visited two of France’s Plus Beaux Village (most beautiful villages) of which there are 141.   Before we left the hotel, I demo one of my favorite ways to do quick on-the-go painting sketches.

Our first stop was Gordes where we found a wonderful place to stop to take photos.
Gordes is a very beautiful old village, perched on the southern edge of the high Plateau de Vaucluse. The stone buildings built in tight against the base of the cliffs and those perched on the rocks above, including the 12th-century castle, are made of an beige stone that glows orange in the morning sun. The view from the village is a southern panorama out across fields and forests and small perched villages to the Montagne du Luberon.

 Our first stop is the lavender factory.  We learn about the different kinds of lavender.

We stop here to take photos of Gordes, one of France’s most beautiful village

We arrive at Roussillon, famous for it’s red ochre with its red rocks, red stone buildings and red tile roofs.  We spent several hours here painting.

Mary Ann, Kendra, Sharon, Helen and myself with Roussillon in the background

  We buy little jars of the mined local pigments.  We also get gum Arabic so we can mix the powders to make our own watercolors.  How cool is that!
I can not resist a “boule” of lavender ice cream!

It is fun to see all the colorful baskets.  Everything here has a glow of red that bounces off the stone walls.  I feel like I could spend 100 days here painting!

Painting in our Journals

Painting in our Journals

Sharon’s Poppies!

Kendra’s Paintings-on-the-go!

The View from our painting spot under the wisteria at the Hotel du Soleil

Helen’s water reflections

Sharon painted this in less than an hour!  What a colorful spontaneous feel to this field of poppies.

First day of our workshop!  The sun is shining and we walk to the Place Favier in St. Remy de Provence to paint on-site.  It is a lovely town square with dappled light and the fountain is trickling and sure enough the town drunk is here too.  He has stationed himself at his favorite park bench and his bottle of rose wine is more than half gone and it is 10:00 a.m.  He was here 1 1/2 years ago when I brought my other group to paint and so I warn my students that it is best to stay away from him because the little bit of English that he can utter is not very pleasant.  We, though, pass a very pleasant morning working on our paintings-on-the-go.  I had the students put a watercolor wash on their sketchbook page prior to venturing out, so that we were ready to sketch on top of that on location.

Exploring St. Remy

Exploring St. Remy

Students are starting to arrive in St. Remy de Provence.  The weather is beautiful, sunny and warm with a slight breeze – perfect for painting plein aire.  Helen has never been to St. Remy de Provence so we walk around the town.  The ancient village is surrounded by an old Roman wall.  We find a fountain dedicated to Nostradamus, born here and credited with predicting numerous events in world history, from the Great Fire of London, the rise of Napoleon of France and Adolf Hitler, to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.  
Walking around the old town we end up at La Place du Favier – this will be one of our painting site.
Janviere, Mary Ann and Sharon exploring La Place Favier, St. Remy de Provence

Janviere finishes her beautiful poppy painting!

 We enjoy a pleasant afternoon painting at our peaceful Hotel du Soleil.  We have the whole place to ourselves! 

Kendra and I show our paintings

Sunlit wall in St. Remy

Here is my journal painting of the sunlit wall in St. Remy

After everyone has arrived we have a scrumptious sunset dinner on the terrace: pate, carrot salad, tabouli, an array of French cheeses, saucisson and of course French bread and Cote du Rhone wine.  We have the most spectacular apple tart for dessert!  The perfect sweet for a fabulous day!
Oh and I almost forgot, but here is a close up photo of my petite palette used for painting-on-the-go that Laure asked to see!

The Trip from Bend, Oregon to Provence, France

The Trip from Bend, Oregon to Provence, France

In order to help us pass the time on the 11 hour flight from Salt Lake City to Paris, we pull out our watercolor journals and palettes and do some painting.

Here is Helen’s cute little palette that she made out of an Altoids Box
Tired but upright we await the train from Paris to Avignon
I try to capture some little hill top villages from the train window.  I end up with lots of blurred photos!
Helen’s cute drawing of me taking photos out the train window

Our train is going over a hundred miles per hours.  We reach Avignon in just three hours!  The French really know how to travel

I am so happy to be out on the ground again.  We spend time walking around Isle sur la Sorgue  
We are enjoying the colorful buildings and the lay of the land in Isle sur la Sorgue.  The river Sorgue surrounds the city as if to hug it. The canals run between the narrow ancient streets. There are little bridges to cross and great wheels to look at with mossy blades turning in the river. 
Isle sur la Sorgue      
Friday morning we take our trusty little Renault, Kangoo for a tour of the countryside.
Colorful window dress display

We meet some wonderfully nice French people.  This lady is showing her Obama hat that someone sent her.  Everyone is exited to talk to us about Obama and “Bean Ledanne” (Bin Ladin).
We come to a screeching halt in our little Kangoo to take this photo of one of France’s 100 most beautiful villages, Gordes

Finally we start to see what we came for, Poppies in Provence!

More Poppies!

Color, Color, Color Everywhere! Color Confessions of a Traveling Artist, Part II

Color, Color, Color Everywhere! Color Confessions of a Traveling Artist, Part II

OK, this is the part I agonize over even more than the choice which palette to take on my travels (see part I).  There are only an limited amount of watercolor wells on any given palette.  So which lucky colors will get to go with me to France?

First I start with a warm and a cool of each of the primary colors.  Here are my thoughts, starting with the yellows.  Hansa yellow medium, of course, because it is a cool yellow and plays well with cobalt and cerulean blue for great greens.  It replaced Aureolin on my palette years ago because it is not fugitive.  My warm yellow of choice is always New Gamboge.   My cool red is Permanent Rose and the cool blue is Cerulean.  My warm red is Winsor Red and the cool blue is Winsor or Phthalo blue.  Here I run into my first delimma – should I include French Ultramarine or not.  It is suppose to be the warmest of all the blues which intrigues me but I think it looks a lot like cobalt blue.  It does make great darks but then so does Phthalo blue.  It has bounced back a forth from being on my palette and then getting ousted.  Sad day for French Ultramarine Blue – it stays behind!

Which colors are always on your palette?  If you were stranded on an island, which colors would you absolutely have to have?  These are the six that I could not live without!