Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 22 Comments

A perfect road.

When I look back on the road I have followed, life had forced me on many occasions to make difficult choices. (Do easy choices exist?)  True to my nature of reflecting on the past, I often wonder where and what I would have been had I chosen the opposite direction. I don’t believe we make wrong decisions (given of course that we make a decision for the right reason) , only different ones: some leading us into learning curves, some leading us down the path of pure joy, some into unwanted hardships… But in spite of all my wondering where the other road would’ve taken me, I am content with where I am now. Is it perfect? I have no idea. How can we ever be sure of perfection? Something can always be worse and it can always be better. And tomorrow perfection might even be different. Art. Motherhood. Love. Sadness. Happiness… Today, my happiness of 26 years is perfect.

loirebridge-12-16-2008-8-44-16-pm

I’m taking a break for the rest of the season to spend some time with my family and do deliciously illegal things which only this  season allows – eating cookies and foie gras and chocolate, champagne, lazing by the fireplace…

Sorry for being so slack in visiting and commenting, I’ll make up for it! I wish you all a wonderful Christmas with tins full of cookies!

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 14 Comments

Drawing in graphite

I haven’t had time to post my drawings from the afternoons with Casey the last two weeks, so here follows…

The first drawing was done at her house and she set up some beautiful statues. I had fun with this. I always have fun doing statues. I find they can hold long poses…

This drawing was done in graphite 9b, on drawing block, 50×35 cm.

…hold it, hold it..

This second drawing was last week and I set up some bottles, thinking I could at the same time play around with “different strokes”, which is the theme of Robyn’s book in our international sketchbook exhange. I enjoyed all the themes of the books and it revealed a little of each book’s owner, which made every book so unique. In this case, I can picture Robyn as someone with a whole variety of “different strokes”, making her interesting, lively with a great sense of humour and strong personality. So to come up with something for her book, “Different strokes”, I played around with this next drawing, which isn’t going into her book, but it did lead me down the path to the eventual pages I am busy adding to her book. And following the advice of her wise bee, I am also having fun doing it!

Drawing done in graphite, watercolour pencils, charcoal pencil, white conté, coffee, chocolate cake…ah…no, that was for eating..

…in search of different strokes…



I have also finally sent Lindsay’s canoe home, with a sniff and a blink… She’ll defintely post her whole book soon, but if you want to catch a glimpse of her canoe, see Captain’s log.

…Adieu..




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Sketches of quartier Blanqui in Tours.

I went into Tours today with a very low level of energy, trying to snap out of it. I succeeded in getting four sketches done, albeit a bit crooked. Even made a mistake in the spelling of “boutique”, didn’t really finish sketching rue avisseau and abandonned the lovely old church halfway…next time.

Blanqui is a tiny quartier, very quant, with only a boulangerie and poissonerie, a small family restaurant, a bar for café et journal, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a market and old houses, which are mostly now appartements.

…la boutique de mon pére..

…rue blanqui, 34 et 32…

…rue avisseau…

…la mére et l’enfant…

All sketches done in sketchbook with pencil, pen and watercolour.

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 16 Comments

Sketches from Toulouse, France.

We are back from a wonderful time in Toulouse. Beautiful sunshine days and we were spoilt rotten by Marinell. It is so bad being back here and having no one to continue the spoiling!

In between all the coffees and lunches and soulful talks and laughter and movies and dinners and lots of walking and even rock concert by Maroon Five, I sqeezed in some drawings. I did the drawings on site and put the washes in when we took a break somewhere. Toulouse was swarming with people out on the streets, which made drawing extremely difficult. I didn’t even attempt painting.

Toulouse is known as La ville Rose (pink city), because of the amazing red brick used in its architecture. It is overwhelming and I felt totally incompetent, trying to capture some of it atmosphere.

The first three sketches were done in handmade sketchbook (22 x 25cm) in pen and pencil and watercolour.

…la ville rose…

…let in the sun…

…empty…

The next sketch of Pont neuf, crossing La Garonne, was done in handmade sketchbook, 22x15cm in rotring artist pen and wash.

..a wonky pont neuf…

A few people sketches  on Place de la Daurade and the ducks closing in to investigate. Rotring artpen and wash in handmade sketchbook, 22x15cm.

…so, who are the curious ones…

A while ago I came across a beautiful little handmade sketchbook, (30×12, which seems more like a marine sketch format) and this café scene was done in it with rotring art pen and wash. Unfortunately the paper doesn’t take wash well, so I’ll stick to pen drawings in the future.

…”une baguette, du vin, et du fromage si’l vous plait”…

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Figure drawings

1. We started again with our figure classes last night. We had only one long pose and the goal was to make a “nice” drawing, with only pencil and hatching.

I used pencil 2B and 6B on large format paper, 42×59,4 cm (16,5×23,4″).

2. A previous class: This second drawing was extremely difficult, but it sure openend up the mind. The model would move forward into another position, while one “axe” remained in the previous position. It was sort of like motion drawing. Hard, hard, hard! I consumed a whole baguette when I got home after this class…

Graphite and sanguine on paper, large format

3. A previous class: The slim model with the dog that we’ve had on previous occasions and he lost even more weight, making it very hard to see something to draw.

Graphite on paper, large format

4. A portrait of the model and his dog. I did this when we had 5 minutes left of class. Graphite on paper, large format

5. This is the same model as the first pencil drawing, but on a different occasion where we did a draining million(well almost) quick sketches for two hours. And again I consumed a whole baguette afterwards..

Charcoal on paper, large format.

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Crash Ill. Fr.

 It seems to be hard work to have a cat and even harder to be one!

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Graphite on paper

Posted by Africantapestry at 4:02 PM

 

 

3 comments:

Casey said…
Wow, this is incredible. Did you draw from life or a photograph? I really love it.
February 12, 2007 5:57 PM  
Africantapestry said…
Hi Casey, this was done a while ago, when Tokala was still a kitten, maybe a little over a year ago? They were asleep on the couch and I had ample time to indulge. I dug it up yesterday when the “Crash” assignment came up and did rework it a bit..making the values more distinct/darker, using 9B Monolith. Thanks for your nice comment!
Ronell
February 13, 2007 9:26 AM  
Sandy said…
This is beautiful Ronell.I just noticed you linked me..thank you so much.
sandy