Autumn Bounty, in the Studio

The weather is extraordinary...the warmest beginning of October here in a hundred years. We're in the eighties, the sky is crystal blue, the windows flung open and the sunny days harmonize with the golden leaves which flutter to the ground all around us as we stroll through the forest.

This is my favorite time of year. I glory in the generosity of nature. I can't walk fast as I must stop every few moments to gather up some forest gifts that lie about me on the pathway.

I particularly like large acorns, with their charming hats. When I poured them out on my table the other day I found two small worms, fat and white wiggling among them.

At David's house in Grand Champ, where we helped him for a morning clearing one of his overgrown fields, I gathered a basket of chestnuts for roasting and some pine cones for decorating.

He had numerous apple trees and in a matter of moments we had several large crates full.

I also found a hydrangea whose flowers had already begun to dry on the bush. I gathered them up and hung them in our furnace room, next to some lavenders that have been drying there for a month or so.

This time of year one could easily sustain one's self on David's land.

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David also gave me a large branch from his kiwi tree. I found the leaves very charming and thought they would make very nice prints. My blogging friend, Mariann Ellis is printing leaves in her studio in Spain. Her system is a bit different than mine.

I roll or paint water color on the leaves and then place them on a piece of moistened and stretch watercolor paper. I splash a little extra color around and then cover them with weights, allowing them to sit for a few hours before releasing them.

I like the way the colors reveal the structure of the veins.

They make nice cards, wall hangings, decorative paper for bookmaking or whatever. Fall always includes a little leaf printing.

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My friend Mary, who was here last month brought me a huge stack of beautiful handmade paper from another friend back home. Leroy is an art professor at San Jose State University and he has been teaching a course on paper-making for years. With the stack was a wonderful note that proclaimed: "make more art with this."

Always liking to follow directions from the people I trust and love, I began to imagine playing with some of the brighter bits. I had some little plywood squares that I painted with various colors and chose a decorative paper to mount on each one.

This seemed like a nice background from which to make some collages.

But I got sidetracked by two of the marbleized papers. I kept seeing images in them. In the orange one it was primarily little people.

For the green one it was birds, mostly ducks.

For the blue one I decided to follow the original plan, which was to cut out some leaves from air-drying clay,

paint and mount them on the board.

I haven't been able to glue anything over the pink one yet, as I like it rather a lot the way it is. I plan to glue some nice white paper on the back so that they can be used as greeting cards.

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I have had a Martha Stewart book entitled Handmade Christmas, for so long that the pages have fallen out. In it she has a project I've always thought adorable. Making a box from an acorn. Her photo of the results is on the left. Mine, after following her very brief instructions, is on the right. I was so pleased with the results, until the next day. You notice that in both the photos the hollowed out acorn is separated from its little top, where a nice bit of cork has been securely glued. Martha neglects to mention that the shell bit shrinks a lot once it is dried and the two no longer fit one another. Martha! Really.

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Another wonderful surprise and spur to action came in the form of a delivery from far off Virginia. My blogger friend Janet sent me a prize from her fabric give-away contest. She has a wonderful home decorating blog called The Empty Nest, which I've been following for several years. She's always cooking up something interesting over there and often has fabulous contests. Last winter I won a handmade scarf!

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I found a sketch book this week which had some dream imagery that I  recorded long ago. This is one that has always stayed with me. I intend to develop it into a hard ground etching. It's entitled At the Pool Between Worlds. This is my sketch.

I have developed an illustration website called mymusetta.

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Nights have also been inspirational this week. Picture us at our apartment window, wide open, with our telescope aimed up at Jupiter. The night sky is incredibly these clear days. Even though we are in a village, there is so little light pollution here that we can see the planets and constellations in all their blazing glory, something impossible at our home in California. With our relatively inexpensive telescope we can see Jupiter's stripes and watch its various moons rotate around the planet. Each evening they are in a completely different position.

The sun is low enough in the sky now too to create those moments, mostly in the morning, when the sun shines through the windows and casts a golden glow on things, picking out particular objects to illuminate. It's a visual feast; I have to keep my camera near at hand.

Catching Up

Looking to the Rose Room from inside the Blue Room at Maison Conti

We've been home in France for a month, but my blog posts have still been dwelling on our fabulous vacation in Slovenia and Austria. It's time to play catch up. This week I post a whole month's worth of photos so that I can get my life and blog synchronized again! I have so much to share. September has been glorious, social and adventurous. I'll try to keep the writing to a minimum since I'm posting such a profusion of images.

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A couple we knew from California came to stay with us for two nights early in the month. Ray and Mary are quite brave and daring. They rented a camper to travel around France. They don't know the language, and this was their first visit. Rick and I were impressed! Luckily they have that "can-do" attitude and all along their route we got reports of their adventures via email.

The night after their departure we were happy to welcome Wolfgang and his family, our friends from Germany, who stop by Maison Conti on their way home from their yearly vacation in Brittany. They came loaded with the freshest fish possible (some of them were still alive when we unwrapped them) of various varieties, oysters, prawns, dorade and sole. We had a feast together on the terrace.

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Our good friends Cass and Billy also came to stay for several days. We had a very lovely time with them. Back home we saw them socially every week. Rick worked with Billy and I worked with Cass. They are one of the reasons we miss California sometimes. The last time they visited was three years ago, so we had lots of catching up.

We took the opportunity to go on a few adventures with them. The weather was perfect. We took them to Lavardin, a beautiful little town on the Loir, south of us but north the the more popular Loire Valley. Lavardin is classified as one of the most beautiful villages of France. It's castle, now in ruins, was built in the 11th century.

The town itself is nestled at the side of a forested hill with the lazy Loir River flowing through the middle of it.

We had never before gone into the church of Saint-Genest. It is an extraordinary building! It was built in the 1000s and was on the Pilgrimage route. The paintings that decorate the walls and ceilings are from the very early part of the Middle Ages. So charming!

We went across the river to visit the troglodyte city of Trôo. This is a city built on a steep hillside. Almost all the residences and shops are built into the cliff faces or in caves.

Rick and Cass scaled to the highest point to take a panorama shot. On the way up Rick snapped this photo of Billy and me talking. I have to say, I really do enjoy a good conversation with Billy!

Atop the hill, there was a breathtaking view of the valley below, with the river running between the treelines.

We took our friends to the château of Chaumont-sur-Loire to visit the yearly garden expositions. A year ago, I reported on this interesting garden competition that invites 25 world-renowned landscape architects to respond to a theme and create a garden space. The results are open to the public between June and October. This year's theme was Garden's of the Future, Happy Biodiversity. Unfortunately the theme seemed to have been a bit too cerebral and some of the designs were heavy on concept but light on actual design or beauty.

Still, it's always a treat to spend a few hours at this site, with its expansive views over the Loire River.

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Quinn began school this year. He is attending a wonderful bilingual private school located next to Les Buttes Chaumont, one of the most beautiful parks in Paris. It's about a half hour walk from Emily's house to the school. Quinn arrives at 8:45 in the morning and stays until 4:30. He has lunch and a nap there. The classroom is just beautiful and it is all organized wonderfully. I went to pick him up one afternoon and he was so proud to show me his place at the table and some of the things he plays with during the day.

Outside the classroom is a huge pedestrian-only terrace. Rick and I spent a few days in Paris with Quinn while his parents were both working out of town.

We enjoyed our stroll to and from school every day, walking through the park, which was built by order of Napoleon III in 1864. It was a mammoth undertaking, as it is built on the site of an old stone quarry. It took seven years and 200,000 cubic meters of earth to create this large recreational space, made for this historically working class neighborhood.

 What a perfect time of the year, with the trees just beginning to turn.

Wednesday Quinn does not go to school so we had a whole day of adventures with him. We started by going to the Grand Palais to see a show of antique games and toys.

I can't resist posting several photos of this exposition. Quinn and I were both utterly enchanted by the displays.

After a nice restaurant lunch, where Quinn was a pleasure to be with, we decided to take a cruise down the canals of Paris. What a great idea!

We started out in a huge underground tunnel that was impossible to photograph. I could picture Jean Valjean here.  We passed through several double locks. The boat was lifted 8 feet in a matter of minutes, as the water flowed into the lock.

All along the river are beautiful steel bridges over looking the canal. People watched as we floated under. The ride took a little more than 2 hours from central Paris to the Parc de la Villette, very close to Emily's house.

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Our friend David, who has a home in Brittany was in residence this month. We carved out a few days to go visit with him. He took us on a tour of his part of the coast. The day was exceptional. We visited the Vannes market in the morning, with lots of people passing through the old gates of the town with their baskets and shopping bags in hand.

Our aim was more to enjoy the old city and its charming architecture. David is an architect in California. I particularly enjoy the old wooden carved and painted figures

There are plenty of half-timbered houses. This one seemed slightly inebriated. Where are those 90º angles?

It's pleasant to walk around town with David, he knows how these old houses are constructed and we always seem to see more of things when we are with him.

In the afternoon he took us to Port Blanc and we caught a ferry to Ile aux Moines, one of several charming islands in the Golfe du Morbihan.

The island is long and thin, surrounded by the bay and protected from ocean surf. This day the sky and water were pure blue.

There are several thatched roof homes on the island. David, being British, was able to explain the entire process and theory behind these structures. They are apparently very sound for at least twenty years, and then the reeds must be changed. Of course, there is a certain way to construct them which takes some technique.

We walked all around the island and enjoyed the many pretty bungalows, with their lovely gardens and views over the water.

We all agreed it was probably just about an absolutely perfect day.

Rick and David both grew up sailing boats, so we spent a certain amount of time enjoying the beautiful dinghies moored and sailed all around the island.

My personal favorite is this traditional Breton style boat with the red-orange sail.

We left the island as the sun was sinking in the west.

We made our way back home on Sunday, stopping in the beautiful Breton village of Josselin for lunch. It is, like Montmirail, a petite cité de caractère, a small, authentic and historically interesting village. It had many half-timbered houses, the style which was prevalent in this area of France in the Middle Ages.

David pointed out to us how much he appreciates the lush flower boxes in many Breton towns.

The castle of Josselin was built in the tenth century.

Now I've caught up to the present. We are expecting a week of exceptionally warm weather. The trees are turning colors and village life has quieted down considerably. Next week I'll share a few fallish stories and photos.