Category Archives: France

FRANCE

Posted on by
9

From Marrakesh we flew to Toulouse where we had a couple of days to explore the city. We were then picked up by a driver and taken through the French countryside to Domaine d’En Naudet, the beautiful venue for our week long painting retreat hosted by Uptrek.

Winding streets of Toulouse.

Bridge over the river Tarn, Toulouse.

View of the countryside from the tower at Domaine d’En Naudet. The foreground trees are oaks planted to grow truffles.

Domaine d’En Naudet

The tower at Domaine d’En Naudet was originally built for protection then in the early 1800’s converted to a pigeon house. It now serves as tall, thin accommodation.

Our painting group gathered under the tower

We were spoilt with a huge, well lit studio with attached kitchen and bathrooms and views from every window. Our hosts, Sophie and Nicholas, spoilt us with cakes, pastries, biscuits, cheese, fruit and coffee while we were busy painting in the studio

One of the downstairs windows at Domaine d’En Naudet.

Our host Nicholas arranged for us to visit his nearby neighbour, Madeline. She lives in a wonderfull old Medieval house with attached barn. It was a magnificent, unspoilt building and a pleasure to sit and paint the rustic details

The town of Albi was a spectacular surprise

Ancient brick and stonework reveals the history of these fantastic old buildings. Centuries of alterations, renovations and repairs create an amazing texture and expose the skill of these tradesmen over the centuries.

A modern steel gate blends beautifully with the ancient brickwork.

Saint-Salvy Cloister – Albi

Painting Albi from across the river Tarn


Sainte-Cecile Cathedral in Albi sure is an impressive building – lots of intricate, intersecting curves built entirely of brick.

Next to the Cathedral Sainte-Cecile is the Toulouse Lautrec museum. Another massive, construction all built from brick with a great collection of Lautrec’s paintings drawings and posters.

Château Lastours sits on the banks of the Tarn River surrounded by beautiful vineyards. We had a tour through their winery one afternoon, and sampled some fabulous wines – all stopped with cork, unlike the screw caps that have taken over in Australia.

Château Lastours old store room

Old church in the grounds of Château Lastours

Not far from Château Lastours, on the way back to Domaine d’En Naudet, Nicholas took us to the village of Lisle-sur-Tarn. The village dates back to the 13th century and many of the old Medieval buildings are still intact. Taxes were paid on the footprint of a building, so it was common practise to build a small footprint ground floor, then cantilever a larger second story.

Southern France’s Occitanie region is a beautiful landscape filled with well preserved medieval towns and villages that make visible its long and fascinating history.

A wonderful place for a painting retreat.

Many thanks to Nicholas and Sophie for being such wonderful hosts, to Uptrek for organising the retreat and to the fabulous group of people who made the retreat so memorable and enjoyable.

VILLEFRANCHE SUR MER

Posted on by
7

Following our week in Annecy, we headed south by coach, via Avignon, to Villefranche Sur Mer, an historic town between Nice and Monaco on the Côte d’Azur

FRAN1956

FRAN1780Villefranche Sur Mer Sculpture by the sea

FRAN1709Enjoying the scenery – Annecy to Ville Franche sur mer

DSC06973Pondering history – a Kronenbourg, Exile on Main Street and Villa Nellcote straight across the Bay.

DSC06988A happy man with a half bottle of Chianti not so Classico

DSC06989Eleanor and a plate of Mediterranean delicacies.

DSC07005 DSC07015Our Hotel balcony was a hard place to leave.

DSC07089A quiet little square slowly transformed, by workmen and passing tour groups, to a place of confused chaos, but we pressed on with confidence and determination.

FRAN1698Pont d’Avignon

FRAN1752Pink Neon

FRAN1771Pathway to the water

DSC06942

FRAN1776

FRAN1786 Cocteau sculpture near the little church he decorated.

FRAN1787 Pink Chairs

FRAN1793 All of life’s luxuries packed into a spare plot of (very expensive) land.

FRAN1833 Vive la France

FRAN1850 Pink Roses

FRAN1853 Stacked market boxes

FRAN1860 Sweet, fresh and juicy

FRAN1918 Old Town, Nice

FRAN1919

FRAN1930Butcher shop mascot.

FRAN1971  Negresco, Nice – Where Isadora Duncan fell victim to a long scarf and a Bugatti in 1927.FRAN1991

FRAN1995Fantastic Paintings – no photos inside – see it if you are in Antibes

 

 

ANNECY, FRANCE

Posted on by
12

With a couple days up our sleeves before the French Painting Workshop started, we had time to get our bearings and explore the lake and old town of Annecy. The town is just over the Swiss border and sits on a a series of canals that run out of a beautiful, spring fed lake. The town and lake are surrounded by the spectacular French Alps, so that postcard feeling of alpine bliss is everywhere.

 

FRAN1354

FRAN1614

FRAN1632

FRAN1563

 

FRAN1643

FRAN1416

FRAN1376

DSC06811Two small Painting Inspectors watch with a critical eye.

DSC06879

There is very little the French wont eat. We enjoyed snails, frogs legs and a selection of various internal organs transformed into mouth watering delicacies in this little restaurant.

FRAN1644Annecy hosted the International Animation Festival while we were there.

DSC06881

This giant inflatable screen and elaborate sound system provided a lake side outdoor venue for the festival.

FRAN1512Red chairs in the rain.

DSC06668Lecturers from the Annecy Conservatorium pose for us as we paint the ancient entry door.

FRAN1531We had rain on the first day of the workshop then, fortunately,  fine weather for the remainder

FRAN1533Annecy public gallery in the old castle.(Noreen dancing sideways)

FRAN1688Wild wooden horses

FRAN1652     Border confusion.FRAN1560

FRAN1549

FRAN1526

FRAN1485Produce Markets keep the town busy three days a week.

FRAN1480 Fromage

FRAN1472

FRAN1428Tiger riding bike

FRAN1402x

FRAN1390

FRAN1377  FRAN1370Straw to line the nest.

FRAN1361 This dog carries brandy to lost soles in the alps

FRAN1337  FRAN1222x

DSC06677x Day one, painting in the rain

 

SCULPTED HEADS

Posted on by
6

Looking through the collection of photographs I accumulated recently in France, I noticed there were a number of interesting sculpted heads. Some in art galleries, some in museums, some  decorating or protecting buildings, others saving their sitter to be viewed into eternity. Here are my favorites from this weird and wonderful collection.

CHATEAU DE LA FLEUNIE

Posted on by
7

After our stay in Aix en Provence we boarded a coach and made our way through the French country side to Chateau de la Fluenie. The Chateau was built in the 1300’s and extended in the 1600’s. It is a beautiful old building set on manicured, spacious grounds just outside the small village of  Condat in the Dordogne

The main dining room

After a hard days painting it was nice to relax and enjoy drinks on the terrace as the sun went down.

We were fortunate to have access to a large conference room,should the weather turn bad. Fortunately we had only one foggy morning where staying indoors made painting a lot more comfortable.

The Chateau had its own heard of deer and a collection of very small goats.

Further down the paddock were a pair of friendly pigs

The small village of Condat, just down the road from La Fleunie, was a great place to paint. There was a bar, coffee shop and restaurant in the village, so we were well looked after.

Lunch in Condat

Butterfly disguised as dandelion.

Hand hewn timber in the roof of an ancient Condat farm building.

Trees in the region were getting ready to loose their leaves – some were bare, some where still green and some had fantastic colors.

We visited the medieval town of Sarlat – beautiful old buildings, markets, shops and restaurants, plus a wealth of painting subjects. A great place to spend the day.

Behind the Cathedral we found a quiet spot with a great view of one of  the towns Medieval houses.

La Roque-Gageac was another medieval town tucked under a cliff on the bend of the Dordogne River. It seemed a strange location for a town, but looked spectacular reflected in the water. We spent most of the day painting there, then went to visit the Lascaux Caves. No photos due to copyright restrictions according to our guide?!

After the workshop we traveled to Bordeaux airport where everyone headed off in different directions.

Dianne and I stayed a couple of days in Bordeaux and after the luxurious accommodation we were used to, the view from our room came as a bit of a shock.

Bordeaux has some beautiful buildings, but not far from where we stayed was the building below. It must be the ugliest building in France, built from checker plate metal, freeway crash barriers and funny little windows.

Bordeaux fruit stand

AIX WORKSHOP

Posted on by
78

After a week in Paris we flew to Marseilles to meet up with the people on our workshop. It was great to catch up with friends from previous workshops and meet up with the new students. A coach took us to our luxury hotel, Le Piggonet, on the outside of the old town of Aix en Provence.

The hotel was a beautiful old building set in magnificent gardens. We could have happily spent a week painting in the gardens, but the town of Aix had a lot to offer so we split our painting time between the hotel and the town.


Le Piggonet


Hotel Gardens


Painting in the Hotel gardens


Dining at Le Piggonet


Flower markets Aix en Provence


Street Markets

We were introduced to some fantastic restaurants in the town. One of our students lived in the country side not far from Aix and had a great knowledge of all the best restaurants. This was one of our favorites – Le Patio, a small family run restaurant with a great atmosphere, good service and fantastic food.

The little town of St. Remy is not far from Aix en Provence. We spent a day there, painting and visiting the Asylum Van Gogh spent time in. We were privileged to paint in the garden of the asylum, where Van Gogh would have often sat and sketched.

Although the asylum surroundings were idealic, life inside must have been horrific. These bath tubs were filled with cold water into which troublesome inmates were immersed and trapped under these wooden boards.

In the town of St. Remy, the main square provided a quiet, spacious area surrounded by ancient stone walls and wooden shutters. We spent an enjoyable afternoon painting there before heading back to our hotel for drinks under the plane trees.

Blue Shutters – St. Remy

Cassis is a small fishing town on the Mediterranean coast not far from Aix. The busy harbour and backdrop of old buildings made a great painting subject. We shared the park across the harbour with the local boules players, cigarette smokers and baguette eaters. Under the shade of a grove of casuarina trees, we painted the changing vista of the harbour.

Cassis Waterfront

Paul Cezanne lived and painted in Aix en Provence. His house and studio have been made into a museum, crammed with his old coats, umbrellas, paint boxes, skulls, bones and still life props that feature in his paintings.

Cezanne had the house built to his design – living area downstairs, large studio upstairs.

The studio ceiling is about 5 metres high and the Northern wall, almost completely glass. The walls are painted a mid tone, neutral gray and there is a 4 meter x .5 meter corner hatch to remove large works from the studio. It’s a fantastic studio, unfortunately no photographs are allowed inside. Below is the front door to the house.

HUNTING MUSEUM PARIS

Posted on by
Reply
62, rue des Archives, Paris

The Hunting Museum in Paris (Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature) is a fantastic mixture of artifacts and art work relating to the killing, eating, stuffing and preserving of animals.


There is an incredible collection of elaborately decorated and beautifully engineered devices for hunting animals, and a trophy room chock full of just about everything that moves (or used to move)


These beautifully made timber cabinets display various hunted animals – from a stuffed example to bones and droppings in tiny pull out draws. A number of slide out drawings and a video peep show visible through a pair of brass binoculars complete the display.


The glass storage cases for guns sit on top of numerous drawers crammed full of related hunting paraphernalia …


…even knives and forks for eating your kill.


Unlucky rabbit


Even unluckier Fox


Handsomely stuffed leopards


Hunting dogs and Wolf


Stuffed fox still looks cautious


Stuffed hunting dog with poorly fitted false teeth

Heavy duty iron hunting dog collar.

The Museum is housed in a beautiful 17th century building renovated and decorated without compromise. The more you look the more magnificent detail you will find.