A Toast to you!

Just a short glance into my gallery, which was today visited by a big Scandinavian art group, “Arte y Alegria”, living in Spain. By the way, one of the reasons why I won´t, for a while, show you here any more of my paintings, is that I have decided that enough people have seen them for the moment and they, not to mention me, need a rest from them. The paintings from the people, I mean!

We spent a wonderful hour all together, and the business was good too.

This photo was taken especially for you, dear readers… me toasting you, there, in the middle of the orange circle!

A Painter´s Pointless

Considering the dramatic evolution of my state of mind regarding my paintings I had to rename this blog, removing the pointer and “Le Tout”…

TODAY I´M EAR

AND TOMORROW I´M GONE…

PS: THIS IS NOT A METAFEAR!

A heart rain´s gonna fall…

This blog is normally a way for me to live another kind of reality. As I explained yesterday, i must take a rest from my own internet painting exhibiting activity, just because I have been preparing for two weeks two big exhibitions in the real world, and I am sick of it now! In French:
“Je ne peux plus voir mes peintures en peinture!”

So I thought a good alternative would be, till I recover, to present the work, ideas, places, etc… of other people that I really appreciate. It has the advantage to show you quality work, and to tell you about me too, indirectly, through my tastes.

I first showed you A Heart in Love, then The Cafes of the World

And now… I just went to the blog of Susan Cornelis and REALLY had one of these breath-taking experiences, as I saw her last painting.

I didn´t ask her for permission to reproduce her painting here, but I hope she doesn´t mind. You should just go to her blog to read the interesting story behind this painting. It is simply wonderful, a dream! And take some more time to enjoy her other entries too, I think you won´t regret it.
You are a Great Artist and Une Grande Dame, Susan!

Café Crem and Cafés of the World

I have painted so much during the last few weeks, and put so much work into completely reorganising my gallery, hanging more than 100 new paintings, that I can´t even look at my own paintings anymore! They bore me to death, actually!

So today I will just present you 2 new projects, which I think you might enjoy.

First a new place called “Cafes of the world” , created by Michael Pokocky, who invites everybody to present there his favourite café(s) in the world. A great idea, I find, and I just can hope that many people here will participate. I show there my favourite café already… here it is

Do you recognise anything?

Well, it has to do with Van Gogh, and with Café Crem. If you want to know more, just go there. To Cafés of the World I mean. Well, you can go to Café Crem too, the second project I spoke about. I even recommend you to run there, because we have just started a Christmas Party, which promises to be great fun, with a lot of stuff for the heart, for the brain and even a lot of chocolate and other Christmas comestibles to win!

Hand in Hand in Words…

Some time ago, in honour of the first anniversary of my parents´ first great-grandchild Marius, I presented here the following painting:

Today I had the immense and wonderful surprise to get a mail announcing me an entry, inspired by this painting. It is a poem, called “Motherly Love”, written by Mary @ Love is my Energy.

I´ll reproduce here only the first lines, because I think you should read the poem in its personal, own context. So please go to her blog now and read the rest, it is simply wonderful! A wonderful example of simplicity and “genuinity” (I invented the word for her, you might find a better one!)

 

Motherly Love

I’m holding your hand

So small in my palm

Don’t you cry my child

I will be always

By your side

 

…

Don´t you find that this was a great idea from Mary? I do!

 

Not much more than nothing, and yet…

This is a typical example of the kind of paintings I MUST do after having painted a series in the style of the paintings presented in my last few entries, just falling back to another extreme, in this case, absolute simplicity and transparency.

By the way this kind of artistic behaviour which tends to make people think, that I must be schizophrenic. This couldn´t be further from the truth: I have not 2 personalities… I have a lot of them, as many as there are extremes! But honestly: I feel wonderful amongst them all!

And don´t forget my competition! Give me a Title for the following painting and win a price:

From outside to inside to outside…

Speaking about the creative process: most of the time I need some input from outside to make a new painting, or at least, it is the only way for me to find satisfaction in art….everything else is just a reflection of my solitary inner life, and to see it outside on a paper or canvas, how beautiful and vibrant the colours might be, it just bores me. I paint to feel myself alive within life , this means interaction, excitement and (positive) tension, everything else doesn´t touch my soul.

But today I made an exception: I just inspired myself, and it was just as if I had been inspired by somebody else. In fact I was inspired by the painting of my home I presented here in my last entry, and that had been inadvertently inspired by a client, in as much as I did the opposite to what he originally wanted!

I just felt the need to paint the town in which my home is, in the same flippy way as I painted my home. Here it is. And don´t ask me why these paintings all have a north african flavour…

Carrer Centaure N° 16

Yesterday an English man came to my Art Studio and ordered a painting from me of his new summer house in Spain, a Christmas present for his wife. The painting, I mean, not the house…

I went there while his wife was out with the dog. I made the photos, we discussed the price, we discussed the technique, and then I had to ask the key question:

“Do you want a realistic representation of your house?”

“Oh yes, of course, totally realistic! We want to hang it at home in England and everybody should see how our Spanish house looks like!”

“Oh merde! ” I thought. To paint a normal house is hard enough, but to paint it realistically, this is quite a nightmare for me. But well, I had to take the commission, I really can´t let clients run away just because I am such a flippy painter!

Luckily, I have my own therapy against this kind of nightmare: today, as an act of vengeance, I painted MY own house in my flippy way, and I can tell you: it looks much more like my house than if I had painted it in the so-called realistic way!

To Be or not to Be…

 One of my rare self-portraits done about three weeks ago, on a day when I was sad missing Kevin, the man I love…

Me not as a man, like the last self-portraits I showed you before, but well, as a woman neither, rather as the very tiny thing which I feel I am when he is away, almost faceless, trapped in molasses time and lost within deep existential considerations…

And don´t forget my competition! Give me a Title for the following painting:

Hand in Hand

In honour to the first great grandchild from my parents, Marius, who just became one year old…