My paintings in Chromacolour

I've been using Chromacolour now for quite a number of years.  It's magic.  I never did get away with ordinary watercolours, was very happy with gouache - until I discovered, quite by chance, Chromacolour.  It virtually changed my painting life and I am now venturing into new, exciting styles, enjoying the freedom this medium offers.  Chromacolour can be used as traditional watercolours, pen and ink, acryllics and even give the same result as oils used with brush or palette knife.  The paint comes in bottles of liquid and tubes of paste, is water soluble, waterproof and doesn't fade.  It's quick-drying, so perfect for the outdoors artist.  And, unlike most other paint mediums there's no foul odour.  

For the past three years I have been teaching art in our village here in Gascony and most of my pupils are now using Chromacolour with growing success.  Each time I try something new with the medium I get the same excited feeling as if discovering it for the first time.  I can't recommend it too highly - and it's really economic if used with a Waterson's Sta-wet Palette.  Here is a selection of some of my paintings.  Look and, hopefully, enjoy!

Family visit

My stepson, David, and his gorgeous Peruvian wife, Vanessa, are just coming to the end of a week's visit chez nous.  We've had only one day of sunshine, so I'm going to have serious words with the weather boss for letting them down.  Happily, David and Vanessa just needed to chill out and do a bit of studying before heading back to the UK, then David will do some socialising with old pals and Vanessa will fly back to Shanghai where they live and work at the moment. Hopefully, David will rejoin her there in about three weeks and they will take up their posts as teacher and librarian in a private international school.

David has spent a lot of time sorting out his dad's computer problems - the problem usually being his dad!  He has also converted my computer to accept an English keyboard so that I don't get my brain and fingers in a knot passing from the pc to the laptop [which is English]. Vanessa and I have put the world to rights exchanging notes on men and life in general.  She's the most gorgeous girl, inside and out and if I can figure out how to insert her photo here I will do so, but I'm working on a new laptop and it's so advanced I've had to go back to the drawing board - not a long way for me, but difficult enough.

Chromacolour magic

I can't possibly blog without giving a very special mention to the medium I prefer as an artist.  It's so special I feel I can do almost anything with this magical product.  I've used Chromacolour now for quite a number of years and find it unbeatable as well as the most versatile paint on the market.  For those of you who don't know of Chromacolour, it's a kind of acryllic.  I say "a kind of" because it seems to be so much more, so much better than the general range of acryllics, which I have tried.  I always go back to Chromacolour.  I use it in bottles and in tubes [liquid or paste].  There's no disagreeable odour, it's beautifully transluscent when you need it to be, and the colours are so much brighter and fresher than anything else I've tried.  I paint in the style of watercolours and in the style of oils, without problem, neither of which medium suited me in the past. Chromacolour has, in fact, changed my  life as an artist. In short, I'm passionate about it and can't recommend it too highly to anyone, whether they are beginners or experts.

A good weekend!

All my weekends tend to be busy with one thing or another, but some stand out as being just a little more than ordinary.  Having been inspired by my tiny writing group here in France [Gascony Writers] I have, after many years been trying my hand at writing short stories.  Short, for me, is not normally an option, but I have managed to turn out three very short stories, so I consider the weekend a bit of a success.  If they get accepted it will be even better, but I'm not holding my breath, just counting them as useful exercises. 

On the art side, I've just sold my lion painting and collected a second commission from the same client - this one really is a personal commission.  Two goldfish in a bowl kissing!  It's to be a wedding gift for my client's daughter and her soon-to-be husband who have chosen orange for the wedding theme and also the goldfish symbol of happiness - and yes, they are French.  I'm really looking forward to painting this commission. 

And here it is!

My client, who happens to be a neighbour of ours, is looking after her future son-in-law's dog.  They had to be away for the day on Saturday, which was a scorching hot day.  I popped in to make sure the dog was okay [it was tied to a tree in their garden] and found the poor creature on a very short cord, having wrapped it several times around the tree. It's two food and water bowls were out of reach and upturned, and the poor dog [a female Boxer with a nice disposition] was calling for help and panting. 
I managed to untangle her, then filld a heavy casserole dish with water and thought she was going to drink it dry in seconds, she was so thirsty.

Yesterday, Toby, my tiny Yorkshire terrier, got out and went to introduce himself to Diana the Boxer [pronounced Dee-anna] and there ensued a great rumpus.  I called to him and amost immediately he came flying through out gates and down our drive, yapping and crying and tumbling in his fear, followed by the Boxer, who was followed by Jacques, our neighbour.  I can laugh at it now, but at the time it was a bit scary as that Boxer could have swallowed Toby in one gulp.  Toby spent the rest of the day barking and howling and rushing up and down the drive and even today he's still on edge.  My neighour says it's l'amour du chien.  Me, I think it's bravado masking blue terror.

Short story

I've never really been a short story writer - had one or two on radio in the dim and distant past, but find writing "short" is not my thing.  I admore those writers who can turn out a good story in 750 words.  That's like a long paragraph to someone like me.  However, with the economic climate being how it is in the publishing world (my novel fees have been halved this year) I thought I'd have a go - urged on by the dh (dear husband or darned husband, depending on the domestic climate) who made sounds like an old fashioned cash register when he saw how much could be earned for so few words. Hmm.  Well, I thought I'd give it a go and, as usually happens with me, inspiration just dropped into my head and is now unrolling itself like a red carpet towards a possible 2,000 word story.  No guarantee, of couse, that it will be accepted, but working a few days on the thing rather than a year on a novel will not bring forth a devastating rejection.  Mind you, being published does make rejection even harder to take.  Well, we shall see.

Frustrations

It's a bit like that old Flanders & Swan comedy song from long ago - The Gas Man Cometh.  Lately, it seems that everything and everybody, except the gas man (we don't have gas here) has plotted to interrupt the flow of my work.  My old laptop decides to call it a day after nine years service, so I buy a nice new advanced one, get a computer whizkid to set it up for Internet and everything falls down about his ears just before he has to leave the country!  I'm left with the new laptop and the fairly new pc in only semi-working order without the facility of e-mail between the two.  I call in the big guns and pay highly to have things put right and agree to things I really ought to have said "no" to, but it all sounded so practical.  However, somebody else's practicalities don't always work.  I'm now waiting for the same big guns to come back this afternoon and unsort what he sorted, then resort to where I was before everything went wrong.

Consequently, not much writing has been achieved, so I decided to get on with my painting.  However, with afternoon temperatures rising up to 50° my glass fronted studio turned into a microwave into which the flies came to buzz me and bite me, so I managed to fix up a mosquito net across the open door and place a large parasol in front - worked fine.  Today, I was all set to do some painting when I heard that the men were coming to put up the guttering above the studio.  Bang goes my painting.

Meanwhile, my brain has suddenly (my husband wouldn't agree with the word suddenly) gone to mush and I've had a stream of appointments get mixed up in it, so I'm now doing the dead dog act and lying on my back with my legs in the air.  Give up, my brain says.  Pull yourself together my heart tells me - you're not ready to be a couch potato yet.