Category: France

#1511 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn art, FranceLeave a comment

Regular readers will know that some things will always interest me. Empty outdoor seating in beautiful places and colours. This picture represents two loves, an old style deckchair and an acidy yellow green, mist commonly described as Chartreuse. Rather cute that I found such a chair on a beach in the Gulf of Morbian. I also found a fairy tale castle/ chateau. Chateau du Suscino. The heatwaves of 2026 have scorched and parched the greenery around the chateau. All the publicity shots suggest lush and verdant greenery, but yesterday I could use one of my favourite colours to suggest greenery that is in bright recovery.

All made entirely possible by having such a packable sketch box which can easily make its way into essential packing for a camper van.

On a hugely positive note Google Lens recognised my painting as Chateau Suscino rather than any other beautiful old French Chateau. I will take that as a huge vote of confidence.

#1510 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn Colour, France, SerendipityLeave a comment

Yesterday was a lot of things. A dive back 6,000 years in history, a trip to a modern Marina and Moules ( not for me). A good bit of research is needed to write a blog about the deep dive into history, I am on very limited Wi-Fi so that will have to wait, but yesterday was all about colour matching too. My archived picture of a different marina exactly matched the gorgeous bowl of moules served to our table for lunch.

And it is not every day at a 6,000 year old historic site that you meet someone who could well be directly descended from the original occupants. This Fox Moth Caterpillar was casually going about his business in the entrance to the Petit-Mont cairn.

As moths are many millions of years old it is a certainty his many, many times great grandparents would have been doing much the same thing when the cairn was a building site, or a burial chamber or even a defensive German Bunker in World War II. Just Caterpillaring about trying not to be trodden on whilst searching for food to prepare for the great metamorphosis.Unaware that he was actually just a really good colour match for this blog.

#1508 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn France, Serendipity3 Comments

A new dawn in some ways. We woke up this morning in France. Deliberately not accidentally. I had planned to swim some of the way by making use of the ferry swimming pool. Alas it has no water so that plan was scuppered. Instead I spent the 6 hour journey doing some digital housework and homework on my website. There have been a few glitches recently, some of my own making, I suspect, and others associated with software upgrades.

The homework section of my journey was to find a way to sign my digital work with an image of my artisan crafted neon light. Which was our house name when we lived in an old mortuary and was also the name I chose for my small art and design studio.

I have puzzled how to do this for some time. Strangely but not unusually the answer came to me during the twighlight zone of sleep/slumbering/pondering. Relaxed nocturnal, creative pondering is often very productive. Sometimes it keeps me awake. I have no problem with this sort of insomnia. Unlike the doom scrolling type which I am not a fan of.

As you can see from the Header image my sleepy musings came up trumps.

The housework part of my digital tidy up revealed that about a year ago I misnumbered the blog. ( Again!!) To make good the error I have added 100 to the title numbers. 1407 has jumped to 1508 I am sure I am the only person this matters to.

In other French news we have done the first supermarket shop. The fresh fish posed beautifully.

I may no longer be able to eat these gorgeous creatures but I will most certainly lovingly paint them.

#1504 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, France, SerendipityLeave a comment

There was never a plan to paint yesterday.

#1503 theoldmortuary ponders

Tennis Club admin, rat eradication and emails were my target for the day.

Pest control took a little longer than planned and a Summer rain storm soaked me through. For reasons that I can’t quite put a finger on I decided that a rain storm was exactly the moment to paint a sea pool in a heatwave.

I am physically painting a lot less this year, and yesterday was an absolute joy. This painting is a mixture of traditional water colour and water colour pencils.

Water colour pencils are my quick/ holiday/travel medium of choice. A pencil case and a sketch book take virtually no space in a bag and water is always easy to find.

The other travel tool is my smart phone. Digital manipulation  can sometimes rescue a failing painting. The Sea Pool at Conleau did not need rescuing but I did have a little half hour of tweaking.

To be honest I dont think these digitally tweaked images have a huge amount of value. They give me the slight AI ‘ick’. But looking at them gave me some ideas on how to improve my painting. They offer a different perspective. Just one digital manipulation pleases me.

A much simpler less vivid image. Not at all Conleau in a heatwave. But certainly a nod to the 1930’s history of the emergence of Conleau as a tourist destination.

Digital dabbling is a great learning experience and I can do it on my phone whenever there are a few spare minutes in a day

But nothing beats creating art using my hands and art materials. Who could possibly pass up sharpening pencils. Such a satisfying task.

#1503 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, FranceLeave a comment
The Sea Pool at Conleau Basin

Today I am whisking you all back to France in a heatwave.

The thing about heatwaves is that they are relentlessly hot. A campervan holiday in 35 degrees is an exercise in trying really hard to keep cool when stationary. Humans are one consideration but a curly haired dog is quite another. For her sake we booked into a cool Airbnb for three days.

A heatwave is not great for art or photography. The sun makes photographs really pretty dull as deep shadows and bright sunlight drown out detail

And the baking heat dries out paints far too quickly for anything useful to be achieved. I tried. All attempts are in the bin.

Oh my arty bones were very frustrated I really wanted to show some of the beautiful places we visited.

Our day at Conleau was just one of those days.

A really fascinating scene but the magic and vibrancy is lost in bright sunlight and deep shadow.

For some inexplicable reason, after being drenched by heavy summer rain I decided today was the day to paint Conleau.

©theoldmortuary

The things you could never see on any of my photographs were the children having a school lesson on the beach.

The beautiful 1930’s changing rooms and cafe. With wrestling teenagers in the foreground.

And the yachts moored up beyond the sea pool.

I really wanted the whole scene to vibrate for the viewer. Funny that I have achieved it during a rainy day in Devon.

My aim was for vibrant and languid all in one picture.

I think I am done.