One of my neighbours told me I should keep a portfolio of my work. I've found it's been a great idea as I already forget when I did certain things and since I give away quite a bit of stuff, it's nice to have a picture. It's also been really helpful doing the tiles for my kitchen as I have the designs in an easy format to work from. Today I'm posting pictures of a couple of trays I did from my paintings in France.

I 'm posting a few notes about books I read over the last few months. I'm always on the lookout for suggestions for reading so pass any ideas along by email.

"The Map of Love" by Ahdaf Soueif. Egyptian writer. Fairly good story even with all the obvious politics. Somehow fairly intriguing even though the characters were rather cardboard and romanticized.

"Oleander, Jacaranda" by Penelope Lively. Very good non-fictional account of a child's perception of events in Egypt during her childhood there.

"Miss Garnet's Angel" by Sally Vickers. A quiet unassuming book that gets you in the end especially having recently visited Venice where it takes place. I think most people want to read something set in Venice after having been there...just to recapture the magic spell.

"The Russlander" by Sandra Birdsell. Very impressive especially how the suspense really builds even though you know about the eventual massacre. Really managed to pull off the telling of a historical period without boring you to death like Wiebe did in "Sweeter than All the World".

"When We Were Orphans" by Kazuo Ishiguro. In the end somewhat disappointing and even during the novel it didn't seem really all that good. Can't really explain why I couldn't put it down and read it the entire day until I finished it...certainly was a page-turner.

"Downhill Chance" by Donna Morrissey. Another really good Newfie writer. I think she really captured the way of life in the outposts before and after WWII without making it overly idealized. I loved the way she captured the language and expressions.

"Testament" by Nino Ricci. Nice to see Ricci writing up to his "Lives of the Saints" period again. He has captured the times of Jesus and what things were probably like and how the stories came about and grew.

"Spelling Mississippi" by Marnie Woodrow. Another new Canadian writer. Very good writing especially for a first novel. I did like the settings of New Orleans and the flood of '66 in Florence. We saw the plaque and the water line of this flood when we were in Florence this past April.

"The Divine Economy of Salvation" by Priscila Uppal. Quite an amazing first novel by a 27 yr old and also Canadian. About a young girl who becomes a nun to try to redeem her involvement in a another young girl's death when she was a teenager.

"In the Skin of a Lion" by Michael Ondaatje. Some excellent writing and overall very good especially the ending but I somehow got a little bogged down with it.

"The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro.The books goes deeper than the film but I don't think I would have been disappointed by the film if I had read the book first.

"The Navigator of New York" by Wayne Johnston. Another fabulous book by Johnston this time about polar exploration and the controversy around Cook and Peary. Wonderful writing once again about ice and snow.

On the mystery front, "Justice Hall" by Laurie R. King was very good as well as Reginald Hill's "Dialogues of the Dead". Ruth Rendall should give up writing I think. Gave up reading both "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me" and "The Blood Doctor".

This is my latest painting and tiles I painted for a backspash in my kitchen. I did the painting as a study for a canvas floorcloth I want to do for my soon-to-be new terracotta stone floor. I'm doing a partial kitchen reno incorporating my the backsplash plus other painted tiles sporadically placed with white tiles. The designs are all going to be from the paintings I did in the south of France this past winter. My walls are already a wonderful sunny yellow of Provence. I think having this kitchen will always make me think of those wonderfully warm, full of light sunny days during our winter there. Just the thought should brighten up our dark gloomy west coast winter.


Mimosas in bloom along the coast around St. Tropez


Rockfish on a provençale tablecoth painted on tiles

Our very dear friend, Monique, moved to Montreal this month to take up a new challenge as the Director of a language centre. We wish her very well but we will miss her a lot, although I believe there will always be a bit of the spirit of Monique in Victoria.

Monique in the midst of preparations for Montreal

This is a trunk that my friend, Fern, gave to me. I wish I had taken a "before" picture. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. My son is now using it as a coffee table. I had put in pictures of all the places he had travelled in the lid.

I've started painting on glossy white ceramic tiles with Liquitex Glossies paint and having tremendous fun with this medium. I've posted a pictures of a trivet I made and I've made some coasters as well. Next I'm going to try to do something like my Rockfish painting over six 6" x 6" tiles that I hope will work as a back splash over my stove. The medium is quite different to paint with so I'm so quite sure how it will turn out. Should be fun trying.


Tuscan Hills on 6" x 6" white glossy ceramic tile

Mathieu, the fellow from Paris with a website on Pastis 51 and who found my painting of the Pastis 51 water bottle, has included my blog on his site. Thanks, Mathieu, it's been fun email chatting and I really enjoy your site. Take a look at Mathieu's site at:

Une canadienne en vacances en France peint le pastis 51

Another reclaimed table today...this one my son's landlord was throwing out. It had three inches of snow on it when I rescued it. And a few paintings I did from pictures I took in Italy.


Table with the Tuscan Hills design


Rialto Bridge - Venice


Houses sinking into the Grand Canal - Venice

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I'm posting my latest painting today. I did another Tuscan hills and cypress trees idea. I was much happier with this one than the last one I tried.


Tuscan hills and sunflowers

I'm posting some pictures of two tables that my neighbours were going to throw out. I'm really very pleased with the results. The one with the pines and mimosas is in my livingroom now and the one with the palette, brushes, and paint jars is serving as a table in my studio. I've also included the cricket bat I painted with a Yorkshire scene.

One of the really fun things about having this blog is that you get responses from people out there somewhere. I got an email today from a fellow in Paris who really liked my painting with the Mimosa branch in the Pastis 51 bottle. He's from Paris and collects Pastis 51 stuff as well as having a website devoted to it. We had a lot of fun during our winter in the south of France going to flea markets and picking up pastis water bottles, ice buckets, and even a set of playing cards from Ricard. Pastis is just perfect to drink in the south of France...somehow it's not quite the same back home. The picture isn't too clear but you'll get the idea.


Pastis memorabilia

This is a study I did for painting a Yorkshire scene on a cricket bat I bought quite a while ago in a second hand store. I was quite pleased with the way the cricket bat turned out. I'll post a picture when I get my film developed. I tried to include a border collie but it didn't quite work.


Yorkshire Dales with drystone fences and sheep

Last summer when we were in Vancouver we took a couple of free walking tours given by the Architectural Institute of B.C. They offer six in total (we did the Chinatown and West End ones). They also give five in Victoria. We really enjoyed them and learn a lot about the city we grew up in. You can get them to send you electronic or snailmail brochures by emailing tours@aibc.bc.ca or check out their web site at tours

Today I'm posting a couple of other paintings I did recently. The first one was on a canvas so I took a (rather bad) picture of it.


Ile de Bendor


Tuscan hills with Cypress trees

I finished a painting from my Chinatown pictures. Just for fun I'm going to post it, the preliminary sketch I did and the three pictures I used.


Fantan Cafe


Sketch for the Fantan Cafe

Photos I used for the painting

My son and I went picture taking in Chinatown last weekend.

I was practicing making links on Monday and one annoying this about the Blogger program is that it won't delete postings you want to delete sometimes for a long time. It may magically disappear one of these days. Anyway, I didn't really want to link people to the Apple Store. I'll try this again. I really love the graphics of vintage posters especially advertisements for travel and drinks. You can take a look at some of these at Art and Posters

I see the Apple Store posting has disappeared now. I think you have to make another posting before it actually will delete the previous.

Along with the two wheeled theme I've posted the photos I used to do my motorcycle painting.


Motorcycles in St. Tropez


Motorcycles in Cassis

Here are the bicycle pictures. Having trouble with my scanner so this might be the last of pictures for a while.


Old bicyles in Italy


I love the colours of this one

One thing we noticed about Italy is that many people of all ages still ride very old ordinary bicycles. I took quite a few pictures of these old bikes and I'll be posting some over the next few days. I think I'll try to do some kind of painting as well.


Wooden bicycle in front of a deli shop in Florence

These are some cyclists getting a well deserved drink of water from the community fountain in the very beautiful medieval village of Gordes in France. This is a hilltown and it was quite a hike for these men who weren't exactly young but obviously very fit.

The French do certainly love their dogs. They are welcome in restaurants, buses, food shops...you name it. They are quite well-behaved in these places and it was fun in Carqueiranne to see some dogs wandering on their own like dogs in our neigbourhood used to do when we were growing up. The French haven't quite got into the idea of cleaning up after their dogs but the street sweepers were out several times a day in our little village so it wasn't a big problem. I did have to laugh at this device the village had installed on the beach for dogs to do their business...a "villepropre" or "clean city". We never saw any dog use it.


"Villepropre" dog toilet

Our anniversary yesterday (couldn't seem to post anything)....34 years!


Jim and Janice, May 18, 1968.

I'm going to try to post a little quicktime movie I took today of Mary and her new puppy, Ian. He is just adorable!

Ian.mov

When we were in Nice I really loved these sculptures by Niki de Saint-Phalle which were installed along the Promenades des Anglais. There were others that I didn't take pictures of and also a fabulous one of Louis Armstrong in front of the Negresco Hotel. Alas, at the end of our trip I was in a getting tired of always carrying that camera around mode and didn't get a picture of it.


Baseball player
Sculptor: Niki de Saint-Phalle


Basketball players
Sculptor: Niki de Saint-Phalle

I just found out my friend, Mary, has a new border collie puppy. How exciting! When we were in Ireland a couple of years ago on a house exchange we were just fascinated by these dogs and their work with the sheep. We were fortunate to live beside a working sheep farm whose dogs were borrowed by almost everyone in the region to bring in their sheep since they were so good. In fact, they were so good that when we went to visit these neighbours, the dogs shepherded us down a long driveway nipping at our heels all the way! Once visitors got going down that road I don't think they could have changed their mind about a visit. I've posted a picture of one of dogs and also some short quick time movies with some footage of the dogs working.


Rover keeping a close watch on the sheep

Sheep and Dog
Sheep and dog

Ireland video album
Our neighbour, Teresa, Irish scenes, and the dogs.

We really enjoyed Cassis this trip and the wonderful limestone cliffs and caves called "les calanques". It is a very popular place for people from Marseilles to come to sip the very special local white wine and go into ectasy eating slimy things like sea urchins, sea snails, oysters, etc. They go through these sea urchins by the ton and we were offered some for free along the port. We enjoyed them so much that we had them in a seaside restaurant as well. I loved the simple campanile on the apartment building with the leafless plane trees in front of it that I did a painting from the photo I took (see Tuesday, April 23 entry).


Jim enjoying his first taste of a sea urchin


Taken on a boat trip to les calanques


Campanile and plane trees in Cassis

I just got the rest of the pictures of my basement art so here it is. Thanks to all my friends who contributed. And I hope to get more contributions this summer. Start thinking about it, those who haven't yet taken the plunge in my ocean!


Nin's octopus (did you guess she is a Londoner?)


Annette's treasure chest


Patty's crab


My freezer lid polar bear


My seabirds

Just testing to see whether I can get a quicktime movie up. Since we actually had some snow yesterday in Victoria it seemed appropriate!

Snow in Victoria

Once I got going on this painting of walls and everything in sight I just kept going. One thing about a basement, everything is up, as my friend,Carole said. I figure I can always paint over it and it certainly brightened things up. I made one room over into my studio and painted scenes of Paris on the walls.


Le Moulin Rouge


A "Deux Chevaux" (a car I've always loved)


Les "bateaux mouches" on the Seine and "le pont neuf"

Today a couple more things I did for my ocean in the basement.


Dolphins and an otter


The Walrus and the Carpenter (with thanks to Lewis Carroll)

Artwork is something I never thought I would do having never gone past stick figures in school. My friend, Carole, got me doing some mosaic tile stepping stones and I found I really enjoyed playing around with colour that way. This gave me the courage to do some absolute beginner art courses and I've just had tremendous pleasure out of drawing and painting since then. Carole does the most amazing watercolours and wonderful portraits of her grandchildren. I'm very grateful to Carole for getting me going and also my friend, Marnie, inspired me as well. She does these wonderful murals on big white rolls of paper using felt pens. I was very attracted to her use of colour. Perhaps Carole and Marnie will have blogs one day and post their work. I've included their contributions to my ocean today along with some others.


Carole's tidepool


Marnie's mermaid


Trish's shipwreck


Contribution by my husband, Jim.