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Earth day – respect, care and joy.

Today is earth day. Some garden sketches as my contribution.

All sketches done in moleskine with rotring pen and watercolour.

…tulips…

earth-day2

*Create a garden that is ecologically friendly. Ban pesticides. Plant combinations of plants and herbs and certain weeds for natural pest control. Learn to live with a few weeds and some chewed up leaves. Promote insect life by planting flowers that atttract them – lavenders, feverfews, buddleias, lilas, roses, honeysuckle… Take care of birds with available waterbaths, nesting houses, perches… Keep containers all around the garden to catch the rainwater with which you can water plants. Create a “strong” garden by not over watering your plants, much like you would train a young tree to bend with the wind, thus forcing it to grow strong. Use the water you rince your salads or other foods in the kitchen with, to water your potplants. Plant herbs to use in your cooking, for medicine, for the household. Ban chemicals from the kitchen and visit Gramma for tips on natural household products. There are info and tips all over internet and books galore on how to live as close as ecologically friendly as we can today, without going to extremes and freaking out on “bio”. Just a little effort already helps a lot.

Respect our earth, care for it and enjoy it.

Water on “earth day” – a clear brook, is my contribution to Watermarks. Drop by to see all our contributions for this day!

…a resting place for animals..

earth-day3…a resting place for humans

earth-day1…camelia…

earth-day4

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 16 Comments

Sketching faces

With everybody crawling out of their hibernation holes, sketching faces has become easy again…. in availability, I mean, not in the sketching itself.

…Spring faces…

peoplebar1-3-20-2009-1-06-30-pm

peoplebar2

Pencil sketches in moleskine with watercolour dabs.

This past week we had le soleil à volonté! Meaning as much sun as you want.  I made sure I had plentiful of helpings of unlimited sunshine, literally drinking in the sunshine and blue skies, turning my face to the sun. And I could see everybody else doing the same. The winter grim is thown off the faces, mouths are turned upward in smiles, little friendly jokes are being cracked with the stranger opposite you and cars stop to give you an opening into traffic. We are all united by the appearance of the sun. If I could capture the effect of sunlight on people and sell it in a bottle, I would be a billionaire overnight!

So. Like all these other cheerful Francais, I also took to the streets, sat myself down outside a café and sketched the faces around me.

I used pencil, which is always hard for me. Maybe I’m influenced by the fact that I know pencil can be erased, but I DON’T want to erase, so I’m hyper careful not to make a mistake! In using a pen, I care less, I JUST DO IT.  I added some watercolour, because it looked too sad without colour and after all, today  is 20 March, which means it is…PRINTEMPS!(spring!)…

Question of the day: Did you hold a pen in your hand today and what did you do with it….doodle/draw/sketch/scratch your ear/ clean your toenails…?


Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 30 Comments

Shadows

A recent conversation:

“…I live in the shadows. Or so it feels. A few years back I was blooming in the sun. So it felt. Now I’m living my life in the shadows. Of my computer. Emails. SMS. MSN. Facebook. Twitter. Blogs. Websites. I am now recognized through the style of my writing and not by my voice. Sadness is felt  by the stucture of my phrases and not seen in my tears. Happiness is seen in my exclamation marks and not heard in my laugh. The truth is guessed by my vocabulary and not heard in the seriousness of my voice.  I have become deletable. I am speaking less and writing more. I am hearing less and wondering more. My voice is growing softer and the shadows wider…”

Sketch in moleskine with rotring pen and watercolour.

…deep talk...

tea

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 22 Comments

Clowns

I sat around a coffee inTours the other day, then still the Old Year, waiting for our youngest who got her hair trimmed. All around me in the brasserie hung these clowns along with clown paintings. They made me giggle. A clown does that. And they make me sad. But these clowns can’t make me sad.  Because they aren’t real. And because it was the last day of the Old Year. I didn’t want to end the year sad and I want this year to be filled with much more laughter. I didn’t laugh enough in the previous one. And so the clowns worked their way into my moleskine.

May we all have a year overflowing with good, old fashioned,  unashamedly wild laughter and may we laugh the hardest at ourselves.

…haaa ha ha ha ha ha!…

clowns1

clowns2

Sketches in moleskine, pen and watercolour.

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 18 Comments

To a sparkling 2009!

bonneannee

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 17 Comments

A mountain house called Coin Perdu.

A few weeks ago we did the final signing for a little house, Coin Perdu, in the mountains in Corréze. It dates from the 1880’s, was built by the farmer himself, then handed down to the son and we bought it from the granddaughter, who inherited it from her brother. Complicated. Like all French administration.

We’ll be doing some restoration, keeping the spirit of the house with all the fixtures and just adding some modern day comfort and running water. I’ll keep a journal of this whole process, as we’ll be rolling up our own sleeves, climbing the ladders ourselves and stacking the stones ourselves.

We were down there this past week to meet the  mayor: an interesting woman with a charming accent and an obvious love for chatting. We asked permission to buy a stretch of  “municipal road” that goes through our propery. (for peace of mind) Nobody sees a road, it is somewhere in the brush, but because it is shown on the map, it does exist. Therefore it has to be put before the community of 200-something inhabitants of Puy d’Arnac, to contest should they “need the road”. Complicated. French freedom.

…coin Perdu…

coinperdu1-12-13-2008-3-52-44-pm

…pig house at Coin Perdu…

coinperdu2-12-13-2008-3-51-25-pm

Sketches done in moleskine, with pen and watercolour.