Jumping Into the Paris 2024 Olympics

 

I’m having a ball back in the pool 🏊painting pool pictures in water 🌊 color 

Photo by Tom Jenkins for The Guardian

I’ve been MIA getting my life back from a prison state & a few days of 101 temperatures 🥵 to focus on the Paris 2024 Olympics

Finally able to appreciate the OLYMPICS 🤸‍♂️

Peonies in Paris

On Friday someone commented,” Carol, i just love your peony watercolour sketches! Will you be offering them for purchase? I think of them as "A Suggestion of Peonies." 🌸 

A seed was planted. Late at the Sunday Bastille marché, finally headed home, loaded with pamplemousse, I noticed the flower stand was packing up. 

Champagne for breakfast / Hotel Carlton Cannes

Yes another Selfie. In Cannes your inner starlet comes out. I hope you're sitting down. Bucket list time.

Yesterday, 3 juillet I gave myself a late birthday presie. Not so petit-dejeuner at HOTEL CARLTON CANNES. I went for the fab breakfast buffet everyone raves about.

Oui, la prix is a steep (45€) But nothing compares to Paris.

And way better IMHO. Here — juice of the day.

Carrot/mango/something or other. Who can remember these things. I forget how many stations there are. Too many to count.

My kind guide gives me the grand buffet tour.

The citron station, everything from wonderful MENTON.

A gazillion kinds of smoked salmon.

Endless jams, always of great interest to me though I had none. Not shown the fromage station - superb chevre from Mere Richard of Lyon. La creme de la creme in France. I ate that.

Jambon station not shown. Nor the Qatar station. Olive produits station? Oui.  

I didn’t touch a croissant 🥐 Patisseries are not so common in Cannes, unlike Paris where they're on every street corner. Les Cannoise watch their ligne. Indulgence means a new pair of shoes not tarte citron.

I didn't eat so much though I got the included glass of Champagne 🍾 (I don't usually drink but sometimes you go with the flow) to accompany my very thick chocolat chaud ☕️ There are discrete signs suggesting you not take-away all the tempting food from the restaurant. I did as I was told (even though a plastic freezer bag lurking inside my purse). Thanks for reading Parisbreakfasts. Feel free to share. 

If you'd like a 🍾champagne watercolor or letters from Paris let me know🥂🍾☕️ 

Much Love❤️ from Carolg 😎 in Cannes🌴

Peonies in Paris

When I saw the first peonies in the marché I was not enthralled. Then I read somewhere that the fragrance 👃 was wonderful.

SOLLI asked me which marché was best for buds. I took another look and bought 8 at Bastille marché.

Financier Pastries

Petit Four Immersion watercolor, 9" x 11"
I'm been going through serious petit four immersion.
Really I should be immersed in the pool doing water gym...
I recently discovered a very French NYC patisserie, Financier Pastries. I bought their little beauties this past weekend to paint. Here's what's left of the original 16...
Unlike the other brand's petit fours that jumped around in transit-these could have used some plastic surgery once home...
Foodwalker, a professional caterer, asked me if they taste as good as they look.
Petit Four research sketches...
They do!
Perfect to get in the right frame of mind to see Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris homage to the city of lights.

I happened to pass by another Financier shop yesterday to check if their pastries really were as good as I thought they were...

They are. Green and white stripped awnings, lots of French-esque details. And they have macarons.

Their signature pastry is the golden bar-shaped almond 'financier' cake - their first shops opened near Wall street. Chef Eric Bedoucha grew up in Paris and got his training at Dalloyau...

Some of you asked after Yellow Bird. I almost called this post 'My Left Foot'. Yellow bird is recoverying from a foot injury but he's back with a bit of Scotch (tape) to the rescue.

BONJOUR Petits Fours!

"The Caillebotte Brothers"

Before I left Paris I saw 'The Caillbotte Brothers Private World' at the Musee Jacquemart-Andre. 

Well-to-do brothers, Gustave painted while brother Martial took endless photographs, both recording daily quotidienne life in the mid-19th century, opening an intimate window into their priviledged Parisien lives.

Each brother visually influenced and mirrored the other's images. *Note the backlite silhouetted figure, the result of the slow view camera.

Echoed here in Gustave's painted silhouetted figure at the window.

Just like these two sharply delineated visitors at the musee Jacquemart-Andre. 

Two figures from Gustave's famous big painting, 'Paris Street, Rainy Day' in the Art Institute of Chicago, again backlit.

A preparatory etude/study for that painting.

Looking down from the balcon at promenaders dans la rue.

Again silhouetted figures contrasted against a light background.

And Martial's photo.

150 photos of Martial's were recently discovered and are grandly displayed actual size against wall-sized blowups immersing you in the atmosphere of their times.

Lots of eating included, like brother Gustave's petite niece licking out the copper jam cooking pot.

Or the family caught mid-slurp at dejeuner.

I loved all the glass in this 'Dejeuner' painting of Gustave's.

And was inspired to try my hand at some champagne glasses.

Champagne Celebration, art on Etsy, 9" x 11"

The Salon du The at the Jacquemart has terrific desserts. *Note the eaters are backlit on the terrace.

Miam-miam

Dessert Boxes(backlit), art on Etsy, 9" x 11"

~

BONJOUR BROTHERS CAILLBOTTE!