St. Agnes, Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur, 12 x 16 in., oil on board, £1,250.00
It’s already June! Where has the time gone!?! I’ve been struggling lately with my choices,
I’ve also been driven to keep painting; it’s an interesting conundrum! I’m living in a gentle, rolling paradise, in
a 16th Century Bretton house – every artist’s dream. But, the landscape doesn’t inspire me – it
doesn’t get in my way either. And, I
knew when I moved here for 5 months that I WASN’T inspired. I knew it wouldn’t get in my way either. And, it hasn’t! But what has stymied me more than anything is
the IDEA that I’m not inspired by my very environment. I paint from my photos and sketches of other
places – mostly from my journeys to the South of France, or back to Scotland.
I’ve
just finished a lovely little piece from Le Pouldu, a coastal town south of
here, just to prove this wrong. I CAN be
inspired, but I’ve got to travel to get to it, rather than stepping out my
door. As I look at my photos from my
journeys , I realize that I literally was able to step out my door and feel
inspired – I often am inspired by the view from Le Rouret, across the city covered plains to the ocean in
the distance, or out the door in
Glenfinnan across the fields and eternal
mists and rain to the hills, and feel inspired.
Yet here, in this gentle place, I am not. I am grateful because my beloved old mare,
Dancer, has settled in nicely, so the distraction and worry of my “little
sister’s” difficult transition from Glenfinnan to France has gone. However, I’m now able to focus on what is
working for me and what is not.
Le Pouldu, Brittany, 11 x 14 in., oil on board, £1,000.00
It’s
never easy for an artist, to live with uncertainty; yet, it’s part and parcel
of our very lives. I had imagined being
able to travel across and explore France during my time here; and I’m not able
to. I have to scramble so very hard just
to keep food on my table, and petrol in my car that any thoughts of exploring
further – to the Perigord (one of my dreams to see the caves at Lascaux –
rather the duplicates since people are no longer able to go inside in order to
protect them), a mere 4 hour drive from here; to explore other parts of the
Southern French coasts, and on down to the Cote d’Azur to the rugged hills
above Nice and Menton, to again live in and capture the famous Provencal
light. I am painting that light, but from
my photos, from my sketches, from my memory, and at the moment under the
influence of an energy saving, daylight (really???) bulb, because the best
light comes into the studio in the evening, and my best work happens in the
morning.... Always, always, there is the
need to adjust, to work with what is in front of me!!
Auribeau sur Siagne, 11 x 14 in., oil on board, £1,000.00
I’ve
more exploring to do though. I hear
there are beautiful rose colored rocks just an hour north of here (though not
the deep red of the Corniche), and I’m saving my pennies (now THAT’S a
euphemism!!! Saving – I have to just
make the decision to fill the tank and not pay something else, or pay a card,
and use that just paid balance to fill the tank, etc., etc. This is the OTHER side of a very blessed and
romantic life as a painter!!), and will make the journey. Red rocks – visions of my desert home return
to me, making me more homesick than ever, but inspiring nonetheless, as they
meet the blue ocean.
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