July 4th at Chateau du Petit Thouars, Waterlogue

Independence Day at the Chateau du Petit Thouars is a 2-day affair in the Loire valley.

I get down on the ground to capture all the turrets.

The castle in Waterlogue app. Have you tried  painting photos with it?

We make an early morning run for the fabulous Mara des Bois berries.

You will have to search far and wide in Paris to find these upper crust strawbs. Maybe at a super fine Primeur at super prices if you're lucky.

They never seem to go off like supermarket berries. No sugar required btw.

My berries are a long way from looking like Waterlogue's.

Strawberries are so hard to capture unlike cherries, July's Paris Sketch Letter subject.

Raspberries are easier - all nice bumps. These were hand-picked by the goat cheese lady in her garden.

You can taste her 3 kinds of chevre - frais, semi-sec, sec.

Finding the  chevre frais in the city is hard. The Summer is when its best.

Cupcake hunting during the day from British Teresa's Tearoom.

Grasshopper hunting in the evening instead of fireworks.

Dimitri keeps watch in the cool tasting room, guarding berries, goat cheese and watercolors. And chateau wines of course. Temperatures reach 35-36!

Marche runs to the village of Montsoreau.

I get blueberries and raspberries. Gather ye berries whilst ye can.

Breakfast is outside under the lime trees. I stay on an extra day. Hard to leave the country. Life is one big picnic in the Loire Vallee. You Must Go!

Taking the Intercity train from Gare l'Austerlitz to Tours takes an hour longer but you get a taste of the Loire while waiting.

I’m Carol Gillott, an artist living in Paris. Every month I send out beautifully illustrated letters that capture the true Parisian experience. 

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Back to my own river Seine. Back to reality...not so easy to make the switch.

Chantilly, Musée de la Toile de Jouy

Some PBers write they'd like to tag along to Paris.

Believe me you wouldn't. Sometimes I wish I could skip it.
Friday morning I took the train to Chateau de Chantilly to see the newly renovated Grand Singerie.

The chateau is magnificent but this one small room is mind-blowingly beautiful.

 No one is quite sure if Wateau or several other artists painted these murals since they are unsigned.

Back to Paris after lunch to visit Musee Carnavalet, the history of Paris museum in the Marais.

I'm collecting bits of Louis XV details.

On walls.

On frames, like this one at the Musee Cognacq-jay a few blocks away.

Saturday was a "lite" day. I only made it to the Musee des Arts Decoratif.

There was a "Red" exhibit going on.

Plus red fire toy engines and red everything!

After lunch with my cousin, off to the Opera Garnier.

Spectacular!

On Sunday I took the RER to see the Musee de la Toile de Jouy just on a whim.

What wonderful fabrics.

But don't go Sunday if you want to buy.

The fabric shop is closed.

I'm off to Chateau de Fontainebleau. Tomorrow, I hope to just walk around my neighborhood and visit the marche d'aligre.

BONNE SEMAINE!

My Bordeaux

Chateau Margaux, watercolor, 5 1/2" x 7 1/2"

Artist Peter Yesis left a comment today, "Thanks again for cleaning out your closets (referring to my Venice findings). I hope you have more hidden in there." Peter keeps urging me on and it's easy to find art remnants from my past lurking in that closet. I spent a good 10 years focusing on wine and Bordeaux before the Paris café and coffee cups took presidence. Michael Aaron, owner of the New York wine shop, Sherry-Lehmann pushed me into the vineyards. It’s been a surprising adventure. I had to learn how to draw architecture - chateaux 🫣 (I'd done mostly figure drawing up till then). And I had to learn about wine - one of the best kinds of tuition there is.

Chateau Prieuré-Lichine, watercolor, 4" x 6 1/2"

Michael wanted me to paint Bordeaux's Grand Cru chateaux for his quarterly wine catalog, so off I went to get first-hand experience. These chateaux tower in a quite flat landscape and are surrounded by vineyards, every centimeter grapevines right up to the road. Overwhelmed doesn't begin to describe how I felt. I knew zip about cornices, cartouches or Mansard roofs much less how to draw them, but I've never been one to pass up a challange.

Chateau Léoville-Barton, watercolor, 4 1/2" x 6 1/2"

Bordeaux is an amazingly beautiful 18thC city, not overcrowded with tourists except during VinExpo. The next VinExpo is in June '07, so you still have time to go and enjoy. Bordeaux sits on the river Garonne and is a short and scenic 3 hour TGV ride from Paris. I like to paint the changes in the landscape from the train window and the tables seem designed with watercolorists in mind IMO.

Did I mention all the lions and sphinx that hang out in chateaux country. Chateau Margaux has 2 majestic sphinx guarding their stairway. Mouton-Rothschild is fond of them. Chateau Kirwan and Leoville-Barton have gone with the lions. Funny thing, when I got back home, I kept seeing similar stone "Bordeaux-style" lions sitting around guarding Astoria's houses. Are there any stone lions in your neighborhood?

I did a series of large watercolors for the Sherry-Lehmann catalog but many small sketches to warm up to these Mansard roofs and cornices.

I wish this was a glass of real Chateau Haut-Brion, but I did get to taste many, many fine wines and even attended the very crowded VinExpo, where winemakers turn up from every place in the world=lots more tasting 

The best possible place you can get that wine tuition I mentioned is Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World Wine School. An 8-week course of tasting 8-9 glasses of the very best wines per night, often from Kevin's own cellar. Loads of fun and not your usual deadly serious intro to wine tasting. I'll never forget Kevin's rules:
1. Swirl
2. Sniff 3x so you can get the wine's "nose"
3. Then taste, but no talking for 1 minute, so you can get the wine's mouth feel and "the long finish" if there is one.
*Note the buckled paper on my notes from my wine class...
More wine to come...oh and I forgot to thank Peter for today's post idea.