Ratatouille Provençale
8 x 10 felt pens on paper April/01
Carqueiranne, France
Lettre de Provence - 2
Chers amis,
12 février
I just went out to get my Times newspaper and noticed a fisherman coming in so went out to see what he had caught. Not a whole lot but according to the people around here it seemed like a fairly good day. He had been out since 3am and it was now about 10am I guess the fish are depleting around here as well. He hadn’t been out for a while because the Mistral had been blowing. With these small boats I can see why they don’t go out in wind. He had the fish separated into those to fry up and those for bouillbaise. I bought some of the frying fish (some were still moving). They will be part of a still life (well, almost still...) I plan to do and then we’ll have them for dinner. I wanted to do something special for my first painting here - this will be perfect. A woman who was also buying fish was encouraging me to buy the ones for bouillbaise and to make the soup. When I proferred the excuse of a small kitchen, she admonished me by saying you can do lots of things in a small kitchen...you only need the will to do so....
17 février
I have painted four pictures now and am quite pleased with them. I set up the fish on a white plate with blue trim and the plate on a blue and white striped tablecloth. I thought the plae, shimmery colours of the fish would be a good contrast to the blue and white bold stripes. It was all very dull and not my style at all. I added yellow stripes to the tablecloth - still not enough, then red stripes, no, still not enough colour. The pale fish became red, blue, and yellow (I’m sure there are fish those colours somewhere in the Mediterranean!). Still didn’t quite work so then I got the idea of making the striped tablecloth like a provençale pattern and added lemon and olive branches and sunflowers to it. Now it worked!
My second painting was Cyprus trees against mountains. I did it very quickly, even threw in some shadowing just out of my head - it’s a lot more fun to do light and dark shading if you just make it up, I’ve discovered. It turned out rather abstract and I quite like it. Since I’m just getting into the painting, having done mainly pencil crayons and felt pens before, I brought mainly cheap paper and thought I’d do a lot of experimenting here - more sketch ideas I’ll rework at home on proper canvasses when I have more space and better materials. It’s turned out to be a very good idea as it’s freeing me up to play around and take chances. My third painting was some Mimosa branches in a pastis pitcher we picked up at a flea market. These beautiful yellow bloom trees are now out and it’s just wonderful to see them.. My fourth was some old fishing boats from the port. (By the way, the fish were fabulous to eat....you can’t beat fresh off the boat)
It takes a bit of getting used to all the opening and closing times and what day of the week various businesses take off. It varies a lot. I was looking forward to getting paella from the traiteur today, but alas, closed on Mondays. When we were in St. Tropez (really quite neat) yesterday we came across a little business selling a number of things including a soap that cured wrinkles, acne, chilbain, arthritis, eczema, indigestion, etc. (Actually, looked just like soap you get at any market for 1/10 the price). Our ears perked up when she said she was open every afternoon. We felt how simple to remember! Then she said, “excepté, excepté...quand il pleut aux cords” (when it rains cats and dogs). Seems like as good a reason as any to close in this rather magnificent climate. The sun is back today but we did get some rain the last few days. Good for things here as apparently there is a drought.
I’m enjoying watching the dogs in the area. Lots of labs and larger dogs around although the preference seems to be for smaller ones. Quite a few run freely through the village. Rather odd to see dogs on the loose now but was the norm in our neighbourhood when I was growing up. It’s quite interesting to see these dogs free and going about their explorations on their own - different from a dog used to a leash. Picking up after your dog isn’t done but there are street sweepers out all day so the droppings in this little village aren’t really a problem (Paris is another matter...) The big mechanized street sweeper goes through this little town every morning as well. There is one innovation they are trying and that’s a contraption called “Ville Propre” (Clean City). The idea is that the dog does his thing on some wooden slatted area that opens up and flushes. So far, we haven’t seen any dogs using it. People certainly love their dogs and are very tolerant towards them. In the local post office, there is a notice asking people not to use their cell phones when at the counter. However, plunking your little dog on the counter even if it knocks over various things seems to be the norm and almost encouraged.
