End of summer

The fields around the village are dotted with rolls of hay, evoking the end of a season. These always remind me of Monet and his numerous studies of haystacks at different times of day and in various seasons, colors changing from golden to peach, to purple and blue. It's true that depending upon the moment, the colors and length of shadows change dramatically with the light.

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Last week I gave a three-day art course to Veronique and her son Barnabé, who were in town visiting our neighbors Anne and Christine.

Barnabé is not quite six but already a prolific artist, spending hours a day making pictures and inventing elaborate stories to accompany them. Veronique is an art historian. I felt I had to come up with a project that would be varied enough to be interesting to both of them, engaging the imagination of a child while not being too basic for his talented parent. I chose to have them make a book which would be a keep-sake of their vacation in Montmirail. We made several pages trying out various image-making techniques. This is a leaf print made with watercolor. Directions here.

We also made monotypes, created by painting with water color onto acetate sheets, allowing the paint to dry thoroughly and then running the plates through a press with dampened etching paper.

I discovered a new technique I had never tried before. I loved the results. This is called a gelatin print, which is taken off a bed of hardened gelatin. Directions here. It yields two prints from one ink application and leaf/flower arrangement. A positive/negative, like these,

And a more painterly one. I really enjoyed this technique and I'm anxious to play with it a little more.

We also made cyanotypes and vegetable stamp prints. I thought that Barnabé might have encountered some of these methods at school, but in fact they were all new to him.

He especially enjoyed any of the projects that involved turning the big wheel of the press. We made some beautiful blind emboss prints and these seemed very interesting to Barnabé.

There were various other pages as well. Scraffito, plaster paper drawings and more. We bound them into a book which we covered with cloth after adding a silk screen embellishment on the cover. All this we bound with a Japaneses stab binding.

The hours rolled by very quickly. I think it was fun for them to discover many different ways to put images on paper and then to put them all together in a little souvenir album.

 ***

We are leaving for a couple of weeks vacation in the mountains of Slovenia with our family. I'll be sitting by a river somewhere with sketchbook in hand. In early September I'll post photos here. Meanwhile I leave you with this rather romantic photo of our chambre jaune, taken this morning as the late summer sun streamed in through the windows.

Visit our Bed and Breakfast in France

Week 22: Getting Cozy

 

We had our first fire downstairs. During the coldest months of the year, this fireplace is aglow throughout the day. This week we had our first light frost. When I woke up and looked out the window to my favorite view over green hills, there was a light powdering of white. Still, days were mostly gloriously bright and sunny and not cold at all. The fireplace in the salon was lit only in the evenings for clients who took dinner with us three nights this week.

We had two rooms occupied. A charming young couple from Marseille were traveling through and stopped for one night, but Marie-Claude and her husband (just plain) Claude, from Blois, stayed on for several days to explore our area in detail, so we've gotten to know them rather well. They did what I want to call "deep sightseeing," and we had the pleasure of hearing about their adventures and discoveries at both ends of the days. Claude is a retired archeologist and Marie-Claude is from a family of historians. They are very knowledgeable about all kinds of things, the kind of knowledge that makes you appreciate and understand the world around you. For instance they told us that our church in Montmirail and many other churches in the area are constructed in "the English style." Since parts of the church were built as early as the 11th century, clearly English influence in the area has been long-standing. When William the Conquerer set sail, not so far from here, and claimed the crown of England for himself in 1066 the two countries became one. That's continued to be big news, as I can remember having to memorize that date when I was a child in the U.S. Of course William himself was from Viking stock, so all these European countries became mixed up with one another from earliest time and the idea of "country" is rather a modern contrivance. In those days it was about kingdoms.

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I have posted perhaps far too many photos on my blog of the view from our windows. But I can hardly stop myself from trying to capture all the personalities that are presented to us through the glass. The big sky, the pristine landscape without an ugly thing in the picture to mar the view. These days the sunrises continue to thrill, but it is the sunsets, casting a long golden glow over the green fields that have particularly caught my eye this week.

I never seem to get bored with this very same vision day after day. Of course, the light constantly alters the scene, the trees and fields change color with the seasons and clouds come and go making bold abstract paintings in the sky. A small piece of this view is particularly charming to me because of the way the sun kisses it so warmly.

It looks like a painting.

Another enjoyable part of fall days are elongated shadows.

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Even though we continue to be busy at the Maison Conti, our rhythm of life is definitely more leisurely. It has been weeks since we've seen Anne. She goes back and forth to Paris and the last several weeks we have had little opportunity for even a quick greeting on the Place. This week we were able to sit down with her on the terrace in the sun and share a cup of coffee and some irresistible locally handmade chocolate after lunch.

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I spent some time in the atelier this week. I've been working on more leaf prints as I keep finding wonderful samples at my feet. This one, from the lime tree in front of our house was so huge, I couldn't help giving it it's very own page.

I also am working on a few book projects, inspired by our week with Gail. This is a monoprint I made this week which will be cut into a cover for a book I'm making, using some of the leaf prints.

The book itself is finished, an accordion fold star book with a little leaf print on each page.

I also pasted some stamps in a little triangle book I made last week.

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Going to Paris at the very end of the week was extremely pleasant. Not only is the scenery breathtaking this time of year, but the end of the drive brings us to Quinn´s house.

Week 20: Indian Summer in Montmirail

 

It's summer again in Montmirail...or at least it seems like it. We served our clients breakfast on the terrace this weekend. The sun was brilliant and the temperatures high. Last week it was jackets and rain coats, this week shirt sleeves and sun glasses.

I had a certain amount of time in the studio this week and I enjoyed trying out a monoprint technique I'd read about on one of my European Etsy companion's blogs way back in April. Basically you press leaves or other flat organic material onto wet watercolor paper which has been brushed with areas of color. You put weight over the leaves and allow the paint and paper to dry for several hours. Once you remove the weights and leaves, your print is revealed. It's not easy to control and you won't really know what you have until the end.

I found the result interesting but not as delicate I was hoping for. I then began painting the leaves, instead and placing them onto the wet paper. I was much happier with the images I was able to create in that way. I became enamored of the whole process and couldn't stop myself from searching the entire village for interesting shaped leaves. I had a lot of fun. I also thought I might be able to use the prints in the book project we will be doing here next week with Gail Rieke.

Water color is very gratifying as long as the colors don't blend together to create mud. I tried putting on the painted leaves and then spritzing them with water to create a soft halo of color.

I also tried splattering paint over the leaves once they had been placed on the paper.

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This week brought Quinn and his family to the Maison Conti. Jos was performing his one-man show, The Art of Laughter near Le Mans, and it gave everyone a good excuse to come stay with us for a few days.

Quinn is at that wonderful age when everything is a discovery. I get a thrill out of his interest in drawing. He can be very concentrated. He hasn't really learned yet to make deliberate marks (after all, he won't be two until the end of January), but he does enjoy making random squiggles with different colors. Of course I have dreams of long days in the studio with him in a not too distant future!

He is interested in just about everything, and his ability to manipulate objects and focus on activities has developed each time I see him again. He calls the Brio train (which I've saved in a plastic tub since James stopped playing with it about twenty years ago) "toot-toot." Cars on the other hand are referred to as "beep-beep." It's wonderful and amazing at what an early age children start imagining and creating stories. Quinn "feeds" his little animals, animates and talks to his toys and clearly is creating
his own imaginary worlds.

Quinn enjoyed tasting some of the last produce of the season. The delicious purple grapes which hang invitingly from walls throughout the village,

and cherry tomatoes from our garden.

Emily, who is a much more adventurous cook than I am, managed to make us a fabulous dish with some beets and carrots. And I don't even like beets.

The morning after Jos' show dawned gloriously warm. It was so idyllic that we all decided it was absolutely necessary to take a family outing. None of us had a care in the world for all the live-long day. Emily and Jos had never been to the gardens of Chaumont-sur-Loire, so we decided to make that our destination. It was a day full of lazy pleasures. Rick and I enjoyed seeing how much the gardens had changed in a just few short weeks.

Quinn enjoyed swinging around the poles in a wonderful structure located in the experimental garden.

 

On the way home we chanced upon an open air market in the small town of Onzain, so we snagged three dozen fresh oysters, a loaf of pain de campagne (rustic, crusty bread), and directions to the local vintner where we tasted several excellent Loire sauvignons, chenins and gamays. We were particularly taken by his sparkling red aperitif. The trunk of the car was fully loaded for the trip back.

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We have been cleaning, ironing, menu planning and shopping in preparation for our workshop next week. And now Gail and her husband Zack have arrived! Be sure to come back next Monday for the full report.