Tuesday 28. 04. 09 This last week have been busy with various projects. Drawn in the basics for another landscape which may be in the textured landscapes series I don’t know yet. Have also been working on a new series of monoprints which are a combination of more than one plate. I like the idea of making a different size of mark and a more gestural mark. I worked on 3 plates put together, each plate being 35 cm x 50 cm so the whole thing measures a bit more that 1 metre across. it is a bit of a performance to print it because you have to make sure that each sheet has all the same degree of dampness and that you apply roughly the same amount of pressure to each plate. However I think it worked out quite well. I now want to try another one which is 6 plates so that the final piece will be about 1 metre square. I have been thinking a lot about combining words and images and have been looking at some of Robert Rauschenberg’s prints. Friday I went to a vernissage of an expo of artist’s books at Octon. Inspiring. Started me thinking about initial letters and illuminated manuscripts as a way of combining words and pictures. Also reminded me how much I like handmade books. Thinking about an accordion book of the ride on the D908 from Moureze to Clermont. Went into Montpellier yesterday to see Claire, bright sunny day but windy on the drive back. Just got back from a Kazakhstani movie called Tulpan. Life is hard on the steppes.
Month: April 2009
Maryann’s Visit
Saturday 18. 04. 09 Maryann came down last Monday from Nice with her husband Greg. Greg went back on Tuesday morning but Maryann stayed until this morning. We managed to jam a lot of things into four days. 
Besides visiting Villeneuvette and Pezenas, we went to life drawing classes in Octon and last night had a wonderful dinner at George and Laurene’s.Maryann never stopped drawing from the moment she arrived: the gate at Villeneuvette, the market at Clermont and the square at Pezenas, all documented. Yesterday while walking through the Cimetière Marin 
in Sete we discovered a book on one of the graves. It had been turned in to a piece of sculpture and was in English. Very bizarre. This morning I realised the bus schedule had changed so I had to hastily drive Maryann to the airport on the scooter with her suitcase between my knees. Not to be recommended!!!
New Directions
Sunday 10. 04. 09 Finally finished Lac du Salgou and have been trying various new methods of working to try and loosen up. Octon is a small 12″ x 12″ on board where I drew the image in oil stick, washed the whole board in linseed oil and then painted into the wet oil. I have also been working on adding colour to my black and white 
monoprints. I have just varnished the print and am waiting for it to dry before adding colour in thin loose oil glazes. Seeing the work of John White last week at the Peret vernissage, I have again been thinking about how to add text to pictures, something I have been interested in for a long time. I have discovered a local writer, Max Rouquette, who has written prose, poetry, plays and music about the Hérault. He wrote in Occitan and seems to really capture the sense and smell and feel of this particular landscape. I went to the libray, here which is named after him, and borrowed an anthology of his work in Occitan but also in French. Now all I have to do is figure out how to make this work with my paintings and prints! Yesterday went to another vernissage this time at the Prieuré St Martial. This is a cluster of Gites which hosts an exhibition once a year I think. Each artist has his or her own Gite in which to show their work. Interesting international collection of painters, sculptors and photographers all living and working in the Hérault.
Deux Vernissages
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.