France and more

Part II
France and more

Off to Mexico tomorrow for our Tesoro del Corazon workshop! I'll be teaching watercolor journaling this year...join us next year...get your name on the sign up list...this retreat sells out very quickly!

so..back to France...Deena and I drove to St. Remy de Provence. We stayed at a wonderful little inn just outside of town, across from Saint Paul de Mausole and The Archaeological site of Glanum....
needless to say we could have stayed a month or two and still wouldn't have covered all of the important painting sites!

Here are the paintings and sites....

 off the main road in Saint Remy de Provence 

 my little casa and one of the resident kitties

 we decided to paint the church with these outrageous red umbrellas in front...such a challenge. I used a gel pen to draw with and quickly found out that it didn't bleed as much as I thought it would...you can see how my drawing kept changing....

 Deena and I ....on the job

 The next day we started out at Saint Paul de Mausole..this is where Vincent van Gogh spent time trying to mend his tortured mind. 

I meant to add the painting but the server keeps rejecting it for some unknown reason...sigh..

 Off to Les Baux-de-Provence to paint

we discovered this beautiful cemetery inside the castle walls. The lighting was perfect.....

I started out with a couple of washes...then glazed and glazed to get the middle and dark values.

of course one must refresh and eat so we stopped at this lovely little cafe

we hiked back to the car and drove back to Saint Paul for a late afternoon painting in the lavender and Iris fields....right below Vincent's bedroom........

and lastly....we spent a bit of time our last morning painting the Roman ruins next to our hotel...sigh...what a dream trip!

Home!

I'm back home after a 5 week trip to Italy and France. What an adventure I've had! This was a journey of healing after the death of my father and a journey for creativity. I plein air painted with my friend Deena Altman for about 8 days along the Italian Riviera and southern France. We stuck to a schedule to produce 2 paintings a day. Most of these are still not finished.....but it gives you an idea for the composition. Here are the Italian paintings and some details on the sites....I'll post the southern France portion soon! 
Enjoy! 

 We started our painting journey in Santa Margerita Ligure along the Riviera coast of Italy. This was a charming town with colorful buildings and the best Gelato! This was a journal painting...we painted along the boardwalk before dinner.

Deena and I took a ferry to Portofino to paint for the day. We tried to avoid the tourists and found this wonderful sculpture garden tucked into the cliff. Great views for us!

and of course one must have lunch along the boardwalk.....sigh.....

after lunch we hiked up the hill a bit and found this lovely church to paint....the stripes started to drive us nuts.....but we persevered!

 Deena's painting...love the wavy steps! 

The next day we trekked to Villa Durazzo, a magnificent home on the hill in Santa Margherita

Deena's painting turned out wonderful and imaginative...my painting...well....it had a few "issues"

so....one must stop and take a break to regroup...and prepare for the next painting! 

we walked to the front of the mansion to paint the view looking out over the water.....I was much happier with this one....

The next day we drove to Rapallo, another magnificent small town with amazing history. We took the Rapallo Funivia Montallegro to the top of the mountain to paint. When you arrive you can walk around the Basilica to a charming hotel called Casa del Pellegrino. We spent most of the day painting and eating here....what's the point of leaving when you have everything you need?