One more post about the JMS Workshop

Vineyard at the feet of Mont Ventoux (Provence, France)   
6 x 8 inches   oil on panel 
I was working on this just before the rain poured down;
I thought I may need to finish under cover,
but I liked it like this and thinking about how we had to quickly pack up
 and zoom away before getting soaked.

Old Stone Steps   6 x 8 inches    oil on panel   
While the rain was pouring down,
Matt found a covered open-sided shed to carve under;
I joined him and painted these old stone steps as we listened to the birds chirping
and the rain dripping.

A beautiful salad for lunch by Chef Angelique and crew.

By JMS (sigh ...)

These are table grapes, carefully picked over and sent to the local markets.

View across the vineyard of those table grapes. Oh have no fear,
there are wine vineyards around as well!

The market in Bedoin was so colorful!

Piments rouges et ail tressés  (braided red chili's & garlic)

 This is Nick Whitworth, zipping along on the tippy streets of Gordes ...
getting ready to capture some video about Julian's workshop.
(I still cannot believe he looked up as I snapped the photo! and I was in the van!)

Here is Nick's video is about 3 minutes long and captures the essence of our workshop.

Ruth Phillips, Julian's wife, is a wonderful musician
who plays the cello
SO beautifully! 
She gave us a mini concert.
Here is a sketch I made while she was practicing.

Ruth wrote a book about the beginnings of 
Julian and Ruth's life in Provence
called
Cherries from Chauvet's Orchard.

I am reading it right now and it is, of course, since I have met them, 
a fun and fascinating read.

Nick made another beautiful video for Ruth's Breathing Bow workshop 
which was right after ours,
about playing the cello, breathing, yoga 
and all that makes playing your instrument
work with your body.

Here is that video - so beautifully done!


Nick also made a video of  Le Domaine Saint Jacques.
Click HERE 
for that link, very short (~ 1 min).

Oh, my!  Links all over the place ... mark them,
take your time and watch at your leisure
... it is worth it ...


I hope it is also worth your time to read this little blog - thank you so much for doing that!
I love blogging, but it does take time so I do it just every so often.

Tomorrow is December, I wish everyone safe and happy holidays and, 
of course!

Happy Painting!

Julian Merrow-Smith Workshop

Road along the vineyard in the Vaucluse

From Oct 7 thru Oct 15 

I attended Julian Merrow-Smith's painting workshop 

in Provence, France. 

I can't even believe it - but it is true, it wasn't a dream.

As many of you bloggers know, blogging is hard. 
I think it is harder than painting ... 
and
painting is hard!

Anyway, finally getting around to posting about Julian's
workshop in his beautiful corner of the Vaucluse in Provence. 

It will be short (well, I guess not too short because of all the photos) but sweet,
as I like to see paintings and such much more than read text.
I am assuming many of you feel the same
 (but I actually am not sure of this - do you like to read long blog text?).

We were about 13 painters with a couple of non-painting partners, 
so there were a bunch of us to be housed and fed. 
Most were from the USA, one from Australia, 
and two people from England. It was such fun to meet them all.

Matt and I stayed in the 14th century chateau 
 le Devencet, along with about half the group.

The other half stayed in another chateau called
Grange Nueve, up the hill from ours. 
These chateaus are part of Domaine Saint Jacques, 
a private, small vineyard - far out in rural Vaucluse 
with the closest "larger town" about 20-30 minutes away, Carpentras. 
Avignon was the train station we arrived at from Paris, 
and the drive to our venue was at least an hour!

We were very well fed, indeed, at noon and night, 
by the wonderful chef, Angelique, her daughter 
and daughter's boyfriend, Bram (I think that is the correct spelling). 
Angelique and crew are from the Netherlands and live in Nice.
ALL of our meals were exquisite! 

Julian's first demo was a still life 

 I work on my first painting at the workshop

Julian teaches us some plein air techniques 

Julian's painting of the chateau - le Devencet

Trying my hand at the door to the courtyard at le Devencet

That distant mountain is Mt Ventoux and this road leads to le Devencet, behind me.
I am trying to capture the light with paint.

Before the rain I did get a fairly finished painting! But it was quick. I will try to find a photo of the finished painting for my next blogpost.

le Devencet

le Devencet by me

Julian painting a demo at Venasque, a village way up on a hill.

Julian's painting demo

I went out on a very windy "petit mistral" and
set up to paint the distant town Méthamis.
Things began blowing away so I had to find some rocks
to weigh the pochade box down.
Pictured is the plein air box Julian had for us to use while there!
All the supplies were given to us at the workshop.
We just had to take our paintings home
and they were mostly 6 x 8's, so they were easy to pack.

Méthamis

 Here is actual proof I went to Julian's workshop!

Julian and me ... being photo-bombed by Miranda,
who is a wonderful artist from Australia. The link is her Instagram page - go visit!

Sam Rachamin is another fab artist who was Julian's main workshop assistant/driver.
That is a link to his website and you must check it out ... beautiful, compelling paintings!

My funny and talented friend Miranda.

It was just amazing to be there in Provence taking Julian's workshop. 

I want to take this time to thank Julian and Ruth for an informative, fun and valuable workshop experience, my first in another country.

Thank you, dear blog reader, for visiting and letting me share this experience with you. 
I hope to blog maybe one more time about this workshop, what I took away in terms of
 painting technique and how to see (always striving for that).
so stayed tuned ...

and, as always ...

Happy Painting!