Two New Pictures and Helfa Gelf Open Studio

Yesterday I picked up my other two new pictures from the framers ready for Helfa Gelf  Open Art studio event in September.  .  When I picked these two up I felt excited and  I am so pleased with them both.  The Slate  Fence  is probably my favourite but the Snowy Fields  done one afternoon in the kitchen (because it was too cold to work in my studio) while looking at the  snow covered hills  is probably the nearest I get to painting at location.  It is has a slightly different frame from the other dark brown and woody looking with a slight texture and is a very quiet picture.  Chanel (one half of the picture framing team -the other is Tim) and I  both feeling very tired fantasised about a little quiet minimalist  room  with a  cup of coffee a book and my picture. Not got time to write more  I have got 6 people coming for a Dyeing the Blues day on Saturday and my studio has to have a major tidy to fit them all in

Back from Paris , Picasso and thank you

Thanks to all of you who took the time to pop in or send congratulations to me. :) very kind. Welcome too to the new followers of my blog, Blythe and Vali.

I am just back from a visit to Paris to see Picasso et les Maitres where DH and I went to celebrate our( gulp) 35th wedding anniversary. Seven or so years ago DH and I reached a compromise. I agreed to go visit Picasso's antiwar picture-La Guernica- while DH agreed to be dragged around the Prado. Since then we have both enjoyed going to art galleries together and I have , to my astonishment learnt to love Miro -later in Barcelona and DH fell in love with Fra' Angelica, Goya and Velasquez in the Prado. This time he suggested visiting the Picasso exhibition in Paris. This was Picasso's ( no and he is not my favourite artist either) take on the old masters. For example Picasso took Manet's Dejeuner Sur l'herbe ( the one with a naked lady sitting between two clothed men with another lady in the background bathing) and did his own thing, this included what were my favourite ,his lino cuts, but he also played around with the positioning of the figures and the colours to0. The main exhibition ( there are three) in the Grand Palais was fantastic and very well curated. The Musee D'orsay had the Manet and Picasso canvases inspired by it and the Louvre had Delecroix'sLes Femmes d'Algers which I did not know and Picasso's pictures of it, which in the Louvre looked quite astonishingly out of place but also very alive and vibrant too. Delacroix's three ladies of the harem in Turkish clothes and their servant made a lovely delicate and romantic picture which Picasso gave a sexual edge too. One of the women Picasso turned onto her back with her legs entwined in the air above her. I have no photos of these as they were not allowed although photos are otherwise allowed in the museums in Paris which is very intrusive. In the galleries showing all the impressionist at Musee D'orsay two women went point, click, point click around the whole lot without once apparently ever looking at a single picture. Why? What is the point? As for the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, well here you would not be able to see it properly for the number of people posing in front of it. I am so glad I saw it thirty years ago, although I thought it overrated. The Virgin of the Rocks is much better. However if you get a chance to see the Picasso exhibition do go as it make a stunning visit. Even if you are not a Picasso fan there are the old masters such as Manet, Rembrandt's, Velasquez, Murillo and more more more! Canvases have been brought from all over the world so giving a chance to see work never normally seen together outside books. And it is fascinating to see how an artist's mind works even if the end result is not your cup of tea. However his drawings and his Lino cuts and his still life's are quite quite fabulous. Go if you have a chance. Just writing about it make some realise how very lucky I was to be able to go. I wish I could show you some of the pictures of it.