16. 02. 08. Saturday. Drove over to Clermont in the morning. En route checked out the road where I think Elisabeth and her husband live. Did all the emails, no great news except that Judith has confirmed that she has sold 3 small paintings all to the same Ottawa couple. Spoke to all at Windsor – they seemed to have had a pretty good flight over. Poppy was already exploring 46 Fountain Gardens. Thinking about the legend of St Loup and wondering if I can do something with that, also thinking about monoprints of the vegetation specific to here – trees /vines etc.
17. 02. 08. Sunday. Drove back to St Mathieu – cold and misty drive – good to get back to central heating. Still thinking about the legend of St L. Watched a 2 hour special on a new film called Paris with Juliette Binoche. Parcel of books from Julia was here when I got back.
18. 02. 08. Monday.
Horrible morning, grey, overcast and drizzle. Spent morning finishing up Pic St Loup from D113 which I think works well. Also finished Falaise de Hortus though not sure about this one though – I’ll leave it for a couple of days and then revisit it. Finally found an internet café – will go there tomorrow to pick up e mails. There was a break in the weather so drove out of town and took some tight shots of vines. I also fell over and dropped the camera but it still seems to be working OK. Drew up a plate and changed the ground on a canvas in prep for tomorrow. Did small painting of Le crepuscule sur le pont de la rue de Grenouille.
19. 02. 08. Tuesday. Went over to the internet café at around 10 but it was closed. Started new series of monoprints on vines. Did a couple of pieces on vineyards and then 3 of just a single vine. Nothing quite worked – I had a vision of something but for some reason couldn’t quite make it work. This is the thing with monoprints – they are quite serendipitous, but with each one, one learns something new and that you can only control them up to a point. I was doing them too dark and was being too concerned about making a picture. Last one sort of works. Spoke to Julia and Alan and went over to internet café and it was actually open. Did e mails.
20. 02. 08. Wednesday.
Started painting of vineyard. Trying to work more slowly, paying more attention to brush strokes etc. Finished sky and blocked in vines. Also did a monoprint of stones on the back wall here which worked out rather well – lots of different textures. I need to find other mark-making tools to get more different textures. Am thinking about taking one of the current monoprints and doing a much larger version in modules ie breaking it up into 9 and then making each one of the 9 as big as the current print. Want to discover what happens and to be able to use bigger brushes etc however won’t be able to do this until I get back from the UK in April. Have to find some way of keeping this momentum going. Finally did a small painting of my mail box with its door hanging off.
21. 02. 08. Thursday.The sun was shining this morning – what a difference it makes! After the morning visit to the internet café drove up to Elisabeth’ house which is about 15 minutes from here on a dirt road off the main road to St Martin de Londres and Ganges. Wonderful, sprawling house that they have totally renovated from a ruin with no roof etc. Loads of paintings, great views of the Pic St Loup. Had a very civilized lunch with aperos out on the terrace before and then a tour of Elisabeth’s atelier and work afterwards. Elisabeth is very creative and prolific and works mainly in watercolours and printmaking, sometimes combining the two and she even paints the plates and frames them – all very interesting and I hope that I can stay in touch with them. Got home around 4.30 and did a drawing that may be the basis for an abstract painting, maybe. Spoke to Daisy and Julia. Daisy had had a great time riding in Windsor Great Park with Jason today.
22. 02. 08. Friday. Another warm sunny morning. Worked on Les Vignes. I am happy with everything except the sky which I will work on later. After lunch went into Montpellier to see a show at the Galerie Trintingnant where I saw a show by Anne Slacik which I had read about in this morning’s Midi-Libre. Her paintings looked a lot more interesting in the newspaper than the gallery! I think she actually prints on the canvas which I will try. Went to the art shop in St Gely du Fesc and bought some more paper and some acetate to use to transfer a monoprint on to a canvas. I tried this and it didn’t work with the ink so tried again with magic markers. I think it would work on untreated canvas that was not on a stretcher. In the evening watched the Cesars – same format as the Oscars but less bullshit.
23. 02. 08. Saturday. Beautiful sunny day again. Drove over to Clermont to take some stuff back and to check for mail etc. En route back stopped to pick up another 3 canvasses at St Gely. Very aware of how little time I have left here and I feel I have lots still to do.