WOYWW 844 Painting the wind and chicken-crochet

Hi all, another week has zoomed past. I’ve started work on a watercolour from my holiday photos. Mont Ventoux on a windy day. 

I’ve still to finish the mountain but it’s getting there. We had a day or two of the Mistral wind blowing really strongly and I wanted to illustrate that. 

There really are olive trees there that have grown in spirals from the strength of the wind. I guess with the windy day and Mont Ventoux above, it’s more the tough farmer’s life of Pagnol’s Jean de Florette than holiday Provence. 

I might do a sketch of Serge Gainsbourg soon, too, as I’ve a friend in France who likes him, hence the photo on my desk. 

I’m also still working on more Emotional support critters with Bella’s help. She sends you all purrs. 

My art club had a lunch last week where we discussed having an exhibition. They’ve secured space at a local deli in October.  We can’t display paintings we did in class but I’ll work on some new ones. They saw my holiday snaps and said I should include some of my crochet chickens. 😻🐓
And finally…

I’m off to visit your blogs courtesy of Sarah’s Craft shed, I’d love to see you comment, but please add your name as I’m uncomfortable with anonymous comments. 

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 843 Chickens

Hi, I’m back for our weekly bloghop care of Sarah’s craftshed. My latest emotional support chicken is at the spatchcock phase. I’m

I’m thinking of adding a second layer of tail feathers. 

I’ve seen other examples of this. 

Bella approves and is happy as long as I stay here. She sends you all purrs. 

And finally…

Happy WOYWW

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 842 Hens and badges of the revolution

Hi all, sorry I haven’t visited everyone last week, it’s been hectic since we arrived home from France. 

I promised Alexia a composite photo of all the badges, which took some time. I discovered that my phone is better than my desktop for clarity when zooming in, but I had to transfer them all to the desktop computer so I could put them all together on PowerPoint and save it all as a picture. 

I’m quite pleased it worked but wished I’d thought of this at the beginning so I could’ve taken straight forward photos!

 I think Angela asked what we were all drinking. Mostly it was our red or white Beaujolais and our local fizz, Crémant de Bourgogne. 

The local restaurant had invented a cocktail of our rosé, crème de griottes liqueur, our Crémant with griotte (Morello) cherries. Since I wasn’t drinking, I had griotte squash and Perrier. It has that nice sour edge of the cherries, so I’ve brought some home. 

Bella was of course delighted to see us home and has developed an imperious voice to get me to sit down so she can snuggle up. She sends you all purrs. 

It did mean that I got to finish my latest Emotional support chicken. I’d taken it to France to see up but it was too hot there. 

And finally…

Take care and happy WOYWW 

We have to be out on Wednesday so I’ll be late visiting but I promise I’ll do better than last week!

hugs Lynnecrafts xx

Art of the Revolution

 

WOYWW 841 Vive la révolution!

Hi, just a quick post as we’ll be on our way home from tomorrow. 

Our stay on the farm in Beaujolais was surprisingly craft-filled. Our goddaughter had chosen the theme of the French Revolutions, from 1789 onwards up to #metoo and ‘Les Gilets Jaunes’ complaining about the high price of fuel. 

In preparation for the evening’s fancy dress ball, we made badges and placards. I ran a badge station. I’d gone to a keys/shoe repair shop and they laser cut me 36 blank rectangles and sold me stick on brooch backs. As it was the permanent Sharpie felt tips that worked best, I got them to do drafts on paper first. I worked with some such as Nina, to help with their designs. 

I’ll do a composite picture of the badges next week. 

This was mine:

It was a happy afternoon. I didn’t have time to do a placard but it was good to see everyone taking part. 

I thought our goddaughter had got into fancy dress from the beginning, dressed as Marianne. 

Her evening costume and that of her partner was a brilliant surprise. She was now Marie Antoinette (with a cut throat) and Pierro had become Marianne with a blond wig. 

As soon as she saw my cockerel (which I was crocheting as we had no bread 😏), she said ‘Oh that’s for me😻)

And off they went!

There was a man with a guillotine on his head, an executioner, a few in ‘68 costumes and lots of revolting peasants like me and Brian, though of course I was crocheting by the guillotine. All great fun and I’ll put more onto a blog page once we get home to Ms Bella

And finally…

BTW I get the cartoons from facebook. 

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

L

WOYWW 840 Mountains and the wind

Hi all, I’m posting onto our weekly bloghop care of Sarah’s craftshed. I’m hoping you feel better soon, Sarah. 

We love this hotel near Mont Ventoux so we’re staying an extra day. 

Here’s my desk: watercolour painting on the terrace, mozzie cream and mojito in hand. I had to use yesterday’s painting as the Mistral is blowing in earnest today.  

Here’s Mont Ventoux, (over 6,000 ft high) often used by the Tour de France, and halfway up there’s a monument to Tommy Simpson, a British cyclist who died there in the 1950s. The mountain changes colour so beautifully in the evening , I’ll have to try a painting of it then. 

I was fascinated by the challenge of painting olive trees. 

I had to stop for dinner but I’ll try again. 

We went to the market in Vaison- La- Romaine. It was really big and busy, but then the Mistral strengthened and they were all packing up as fast as they could. Here’s one of their parasols in flight. 

A lovely mural caught my fancy on the way in (and helped confirm our route back to the car on the way back. 

Bella is doing ok, according to her Aunty Liz, and no doubt is sending us all purrs.😻

And finally…

You could read any of your favourite hobbies instead of quilting. 

We go up to Létra en Beaujolais for the weekend and our goddaughter’s birthday party. Saturday will feature a fancy dress ball on the subject of French revolutions. I’ll say no more now but will let you know next week. 😼

Happy WOYWW. I’ll try and visit but it’ll be subject to local WiFi. 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 839 French monuments and heatwaves

Hi all, firstly my desk from art class. 

 

I’ll be adding to it when we get back. 

We came down to Central France on Sunday to see Chartres cathedral which had amazing statuary and stained glass. It was built around 1000 yrs ago and has that deep sense of spirituality that you get from more than a millennium of worship. I’ve felt the same in the temples of Angkor Wat, for example. 

The heat is ferocious,38deg today across most of France but it’s due to abate a bit soon. 

We drove down to Montluçon today to stay in the Chateau St Jean, which is superb. When we arrived we were given a gorgeous fresh and chilled ice tea made of lemon balm and mint. Waiting for us in our room was quite the nicest welcome pastry I’ve ever tasted. Sorry not to take a picture of it. It was a tartlet made with almond shortbread pastry, filled with crushed pistachios and blackcurrant caramel. It’s an excellent way to spend our 42nd wedding anniversary (2 days early, but so what😀). 

Tomorrow we’re going to a 14th century paper mill. Last time I visited, B had a nap in the car. However, they did the specially French style of guided visit where they shut doors behind you and you can’t opt out, so he didn’t see me for 2 hours 😅 This time we'll go round together. They make watercolour paper too!  😻 Here’s their link: 

https://www.richarddebas.fr/

We’ll spend a few days at a hotel north of Avignon in the hills before going up to Beaujolais for our goddaughter’s birthday. 

Bella is being looked after by her Aunty Liz; she no doubt sends us and you all purrs. She was happily supervising me with hen mark 3 before we left. 

And finally…

For other aged CSNY fans like me:

That was almost B, but we found a shop in Chartres to replace the one he left at home. 😹

I’ll try to visit but it will be dependent on hotel , and may be after our next journey. . 

Happy WOYWW 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx

WOYWW 838 Thrones and apricots

Hi all, I’m back for bloghopping care of Sarah’s craft shed, though it doesn’t seem like a week has passed. 

Here’s my art course desk for our ink and wash paintings. I’m now doing one of the logs and two details, one of a carved woodland throne in the park and another of animals on it. 

Claire asked us to go straight in with pens rather than doing pencil first - (“its summer, we should experiment”) it’s scary and when I got my hare wrong it looked like tracked motion 😹. Hopefully it’ll be better once I’ve added shading. 

Here’s the classes wild leaf and flower paintings from last week in the style of Sue Lewington,( not Levington, sorry).

Bella’s been helping me with emotional support chicken no.3. She sends you all purrs. 

I wish she could talk our apricots into ripening. For once we have an excellent crop. They’ve coloured but are still hard. 

Could they ripen in the car? (Next week’s blog will be dependent on hotel WiFi ). No, I’ve just checked and bl@@dy Brexit means we can’t take them to France. Brian’s ready to stuff our unripe apricots down the throat of the person I’ve called niff Sewage. 

For so many years we’ve had a poor or no crop, and now look at them! Hopefully our neighbours and Aunty Liz who’s feeding Bella, will get the benefit of them. 

And finally, 

I’ll be visiting tomorrow 

Hugs

Lynnecrafts xx