David Hockney sketchbook 📕

 

I started looking at my old sketchbooks…

After watching David Hockney’s sketchbook ✍️ 

Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge,original art, 5" x 7"

Montmartre expert, Peter guided me to Place Clichy.

To see the Moulin Rouge. I don't think I've visited since my first trip to Europe.

On a grey Paris afternoon, we just browsed a bit like everyone else.

"Les Girls"

Around the corner, the boutique awaits.

Thanks Gawd I'm no longer under the hypnotic spell of mini-mania. This would have been hard to resist.

Here's a chance to toast/trinquer with glasses full of gold glitter. Of course you know better than to ever toast with plain water! Unlike some people :( Peter writes that the Moulin Rouge is the biggest champagne buyer in the world - around 350 000 bottles a year - more or less 1000 bottles per day. That's a lot of trinquer going on!

This red Moulin Rouge mug gave me pause... I love red big time. should I do over my apartment in Moulin Rouge style rather than Eiffel Tower decor?

Fortunately there were no large essential items on offer, like pillows or lamps etc. Decision resolved in favor of the Eiffel Tower motif!

I'm not that big on ashtrays but this reminded me of.

All the wonderful prints and posters Toulouse-Lautrec created.

For the Moulin Rouge in the late 1800's.

Too many to count notable performers have taken the stage at the Moulin Rouge including La Goulue, Josephine Baker, Frank Sinatra, Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril, Mistinguett, Le Pétomane, Édith Piaf and others.

So it's only natural that the backdoor will have it's "stage door Johnnys" awaiting.

BONJOUR MOULIN ROUGE!

Shooting The Chefs

More brilliant career history, since you loved the Bocuse story. I got involved with The James Beard House because I fell in love with fancy plating while at a French spa, Les Pres D'Eugenie les Bains. I took a cooking tour visiting New York's top restaurant kitchens when I returned.The leader suggested I volunteer at the James Beard House so I could learn to plate on the site.

This chef is 'plating' = creating beautiful plates for the diners. He is making sure every plate is perfect and delectable.That's how I joined the Beard House parsley chopping brigade.

The chefs perform in the kitchen like theater. They dance around like Baryshnikov, working in unison. I loved sketching them. But plating is HARD WORK, and first chance I got, I switched to shooting the chefs.

Watching the chefs move around is like being at a life drawing class... I was dying to draw them! As soon as I got home I'd start sketching and next day I'd shoot off my sketches via fax into the chef's kitchens.

I became the Toulouse Lautrec of the kitchen. I met every chef in the food world and I drew ✏️ them.

But painting those chefs caused me such weltschmerz /world-pain. Finally a week before the opening of portrait show I figured it out. I painted multiple drawings on a toned ground canvas like old master drawings. Plus I added their signatures for texture.

I loved painting chefs from the back especially...so much character is revealed from the back view.
I almost forgot. Part of the hard work of photographing the chefs dancing in the kitchen, was shooting these gorgeous plates. AND eating them. The top dish is a roasted peach filled with berries and ice cream. The bottom dish looks like fish + chips, but is really Rattlesnake + chips. All part of the job of shooting the chefs. More on my brilliant careers to come.