Sunday 05. 04. 09 It has been a busy week. On Monday I went to Montpellier to IKEA to buy a coffee table and after checking to see that the parcel would fit on the scooter I forgot to see if they had it in stock. They didn’t! However it was a pleasant drive and as always I picked up a few 
small things. I had George and Laurene over for lunch on market day which worked well with chicken stuffed with goat’s cheese mixed with taragon. Thursday and Friday evening I went to a couple of vernissages, the first on Thursday at Peret at the anpq gallery and the other on Friday at Aniane. Both interesting, my friend Jonathan was part of a group show in Aniane. This morning I have been to the flea market at Marseillan looking for a carpet and then this afternoon went for a drive around lac du Salagou – it was warm enough to drive in a T shirt! I have been working on a monoprint of textured landscape this week and have done a couple of small paintings trying out a technique of drawing into the paint more.
Journal
Mt Aigoual
21. 03. 09 Saturday. Met Claire at St Martin de Londres then drove up to the summit of Mt Aigoual. We stopped en route at the Café du Siecle. Very authentic but when Claire asked for a little more milk for her tea they demanded another 20 cents! So much for the rustic locals!!! Surprised to find snow on the summit and despite the sunshine only 5 degrees. Came back down a bit until we found a Tourist Office who showed us a hike in the woods where all the trees were identified. Eventually found the trail, had a our sandwiches and then went for a lovely walk. Passed many different types of pine including some surprisingly big ones. Evenutally ended up at a little hameau with an old church and then back tracked back to the car. En route down stopped at La Cravate for the view and also dessert – excellent as always. Drove back to St Martin where I got back on the scooter and drove back to Clermont.
En Plein Air
20. 03. 09 Friday. It has been a busy week. On Monday started painting en plein air at George and Lawrene’s house and then did another small painting in the woods en route to Liauson Friday afternoon. Went to my engraving class on Tuesday but battery on the scooter was flat after the class. Managed to get a ride back into town with Claude but had to get the tow truck out there on Wednesday morning. Quite impressive service, rang for truck from Pezenas at 9 and was in Octon by 10. Of course as soon as we got there Alex managed to start the scooter!!! C’est toujours comme ça! I drove back with him to Pezenas where they changed the battery for me and off I went again. Yet another opportunity for improving my French vocabulary!! Apparently I can also get the towage fee back from my insurance. Thursday I started my life drawing class also at Octon in the evening. Drove there with Jonathan and met Rania and had a coffee before class. Good class, very informal group which just shares the cost of the model.
Landscapes
17. 03. 09 Tuesday. Yesterday I finally finished Textured Landscape or at least I think I have finished it. It is quite large 80 x 100 cm and is based on the the hillside just outside Clermont. Also last week I did a couple of small paintings 8″ x 10″ of the local landscape. One is of an old disused railway bridge and the other is near Octon where I go for my engraving class and is of burning the old bits of vines. I am hoping to start a painting of olive trees this week in the textured series based on a couple of olive trees just by the gas station at the HyperU. I have been to two movies, Bellamy by Claude Chabrol with Gérard Depardieu shot in Nimes and Sete and The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke. Depardieu is colossal physically and plays a commissaire de Police on holiday in the south. Quite Maigret-esque and all in French so I think I may have missed a few bits but enjoyed it all the same. Interesting how French actors don’t necessarily have to be in perfect shape altho Mickey Rourke is in interesting physical condition too for his part!!!
Printemps
Wednesday 25. 02. 09 I was talking to someone the other day and they said that the weather will change after the 15th and indeed it has. The mimosas are blooming and some cherry trees too. Yesterday I went to my engraving class and it was warm enough to work outside in just a T shirt. Recently I have been working on a large canvas called Textured Landscape see above. It is not finished yet but I am quite happy with the way it is coming along. I did some monoprints at my class yesterday and next week we will try linocuts.
Downtown
Sunday 15. 02. 09 Yesterday went into Montpellier to get my urban fix. It was a beautiful sunny day and I took the noon bus. En route noticed that the landscape was alive again, with mimosas blooming everywhere. One of the advantages of bus travel is that you can see the landscape rather than concentrating on the road, altho you don’t get the smells that you discover riding on the scooter. Managed to to find a Moleskine notebook at the Fnac for my journal and then wandered over to the Musée Fabre for the Emile Nolde exhibition. An interesting show and I realised that I knew nothing of Nolde’s life or his early paintings which ranged from images from German mythology, peasant life, through to the night life of Berlin to religious paintings. My favourites were his seascapes. There was also a section devoted to his graphic work which included etchings, lithographs and woodcuts. He was extremely prolific and even survived the war under the Nazis painting watercolours (he was forbidden to paint in oil!). After this I went over to the old quarter of town to the vernissage of my friend from St Matieu Gérard Bru. Great show with over forty paintings. After all this culture, I caught the bus back to Clermont. Today I had a tasty lunch chez Giselle and Jonathan. Great food, good conversation and a wonderfully convivial atmosphere. C’était vraiment un bon week-end!
An odd week
Friday 06. 02. 09 It has been an unusually wet week in Clermont with 4 days of rain and very little sunshine. I now realise why they have the canals everywhere; where there was normally a trickle this week there was a torrent. En route to the HyperU I noticed that there were camels and lamas grazing on the parking lot – the circus was back for 2 days. Also on Tuesday on the way to Octon for my etching class I noticed snow on the plateau. Strange times. I was supposed to go over to St. Mathieu this week to do some en plein air studies of le Pic du Loup but because of the weather I cancelled. I finally finished a landscape I have been working on since before Christmas shown above and I’m now working on a large painting showing the textures of the landscape. Hopefully next week the weather will improve and I can paint outside. Went to a vernissage at the wine store beneath Le Tournesol, liked the wine not so sure about the paintings.
Christmas in TO
Sunday 11. 01. 09 It has been a great visit despite the wintery weather. I think I have seen most of my friends and have also had time to spend with the family. I managed to visit many of my old haunts including the Patrician Grill. I housesat Veronica and Arthur’s house in Rosedale with their cat Foxy in great comfort and for the rest of the time I stayed with Jason, Alisa and Poppy. Christmas dinner was at Rosedale with family and New Year’s with friends at Jon and Barbara’s. I go back to France tomorrow to milder weather brimming with new ideas for paintings and prints. Thanks to everyone for their friendship and their hospitality and best wishes for 2009.
Etchings and Provence
Friday 05. 12. 08 It has been a busy week. I have been to the atelier 3 times this week working on a series of monoprints and also on my etchings. I have also joined a French conversation class run by the Acceuil in Clermont. Today took a break and went with Claire over to to the other side of the Rhone to Les Baux and St Remy de Provence. I left on the 7.20 bus from Clermont in the dark and in the rain. By the time I met Claire in Montpellier it had stopped raining and the sun was shining so we continued on to Les Baux which was deserted. Like so many places out of season there was a certain tristesse in the emptiness of all the high end shops. We finally found a café and enjoyed an expensive mid-morning break before heading out to St Remy. St Remy was not crowded but people were out on the street and the cafés were alive with people eating outside and inside. We found a brasserie and opted for the menu du jour of cassoulet which was hot and hearty if not farty! All washed down with a pichet of the local red. After such a heavy lunch we walked around the town which had changed a lot since I was last there. We posted Claire’s Christmas cards and then went to an expo of prints at the Musée des Alpilles. The expo was not up to much but the permanent collection of local traditions and industries was fascinating and the building had that near perfect mix of the old and the new with old honey coloured stone next to glass doors and stainless steel fittings. Very nice. We headed back and had tea in Aigues Morte before parting at the gare routière in Montpellier where I caught the 6.15 bus back here.
Musée haut, musée bas
Friday 21. 11. 08 Took the bus into Montpellier today to meet Claire and saw Musée haut, musée bas a new movie by Jean-Michel Ribes. A satiric take on the gallery-going public. It shows a cross-section of gallery visitors from the guy looking for the parking lot only identified by an icon of a famous painter, to an opening of a faux Mapplethorpe show of 300 photos of penises. The film ends with a biblical flood which leaves the survivors clinging to a raft à la The Raft of Medusa by Géricault. A bizarre, clever, funny movie.