Collioure Church

Port Vendres

These sketches are from Port Vendres. I wanted to see this place because I love the watercolors of Charles Rennie Macintosh and he lived and painted here in his later years. There is a self-guided walking tour of the sites he painted so Valerie and I did that. You can see in the photo to the right that he painted the fort in Collioure too. It was fun to try to figure out exactly where he sat to paint. I think he took some artistic license where he needed to so it was cool to see how he handled that. The two sketches above are somewhat influenced by my walking tour. 

Life is an Ink Painting

“Life delineates itself on the canvas called time, and time never repeats; once gone, forever gone; and so is an act once done, it is never undone. Life is an ink-painting which must be executed once and for all time and without hesitation, without intellection, and no corrections are permissible or possible." 

"Life is not like an oil painting, which can be rubbed out and done over time and again until the artist is satisfied. With an ink-painting any brush stroke painted over a second time results in a smudge; the life has left it. All corrections show when the ink dries. So is life. We can never retract what we have committed to deeds.”

D.T. Suzuki

The idea for this post comes from one of my favorite bloggers - James Gurney. He always has an interesting entry and usually every day! He's on the list on the right side of my blog. 

Collioure

Sketching Night

In my 5x8 Handbook Journal.

Couvent des Célestins

I've seen a few churches in my life and this one seems pretty unique to me. I did some research on this monastery because it seems so unusual to me (from an architectural point of view) but found relatively little information in my Google searches. Evidently it started out as a wooden chapel built around 1389 and then, in 1393, Pope Clement VII granted the Celestines the authorization to build their monastery there. In 1395 the first stone was laid and construction continued until 1424, when work was stopped due to "insufficient resources". The architect, or Master of Works, was a fellow named Pierre Morel. Anyway, by the 17th century,the "Couvent des Célestins" was one of the most sumptuous in Avignon, with one of the richest accumulations of art. Most of that bit of history comes from this website on Avignon.

But what interested me from an architectural perspective I never found. There are arches that were started but  just end in space. The arched window in the upper left corner looks like something Louis Kahn would do - it's very modern. There are capitals to columns that are unlike any I have ever seen. If anyone comes across this blog entry and knows where I can learn more about the architectural treatment of this building, please do leave a comment or email me. I'd love to know more about it.

These watercolor sketches are in my 5x8 handbook.

Saint-Remy-de-Provence - Part 2

In the 5x8 Handbook Journal...

Saint-Remy-de-Provence

After the bike trip, we hung around in Gordes for a night and then took a taxi to St. Remy, where we stayed for 2 days. Looking back on my time there, I don't think I used it very wisely. There were lots of things we missed but maybe we just needed to chill for awhile after being on the bike for a week.

This sketch is from the Musée Estrine, Centre Interprétation présence Van Gogh. I went there after a long stretch of drawing a house just outside of the central town. The museum was pretty disappointing - there were no Van Gogh paintings or drawings and the other main exhibit was pretty awful. However, I did find this courtyard and got this sketch done just as they were closing for the day.

Gordes

While biking in Provence we stayed in Gordes for a couple of nights. Gordes is a lovely old hillside village - often described as "one of the most beautiful villages in France". Before I left for France I had seen a wonderful book of sketches on the Provence region with drawings by Fabrice Moireau's that inspired my drawing above. They are pencil and watercolor sketches that are often "unfinished" in places. The effect is that eye is focused immediately on what the artist is most interested in describing and supported or framed with the added context of  the uncolored pencil drawing. One afternoon, after a hard day of biking, I forced myself to take my art backpack up the hill from where we were staying and draw this. It took me a couple of hours to draw the scene and the next day I spent an hour or so painting it.

When I returned and saw Moireau's book, I was amazed to see that the sketch on the front cover was of the very same scene that I drew! You can see his drawing here. They are similar in many ways though he sketched from a slightly different location than I did. This is  pencil and watercolor on 12x16 Canson watercolor block.

The Colors of Provence

I loved Provence. I have always wanted to go and what better way to see it than on my bike. There is just no better way to see a region like this. The sketches above were mostly done in the small town of Gordes except for one on the top right which I did in Rousillon. Watercolor, pencil and ink in my 5x8 handbook journal.