Carnets de Voyage #2 Tuscany

Tuscan Farmhouse, watercolor, 6 x 9"

Before there was the camera, there was the paintbox. And everyone did it! Painted I mean. The Victorians made sure of that. Some folks are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. I've always thought all Brits were born with a Windsor & Newton paintbrush in their mouths. How I've longed to be born British. Then I'd be a natural born watercolor painter from day 1. 

The Victorians pretty much invented the paintbox. They  decided it was a good idea to go off galavanting around the world on The Grand Tour. And you better have your paintbox along to record your travel experiences. 

Watercolor is the perfect medium for travel - lightweight, fast drying, fluid and very portable. 

The British even taught THE FRENCH how to learn to love l'aquarelle. Richard Parkes Bonnington, the greatest of them all, 

Taught Delacroix how to paint a wash.

Hilltop Town, watercolor, 6 x 9"

There's a mystique about painting in watercolor. It looks so damn easy and it's so damn hard. 

Painting in watercolor is an obsession right up there with loving macarons. And there is endless paraphernalia you can buy just to make a simple watercolor.

Adorable little porcelaine mixing dishes from England. Fancy Russian Kolinsky "travel" brushes from everywhere. Blocks of watercolor paper stuck on a board so the paper won't curl up while you're painting by the Iguazu Falls. Special containers to carry your water. Special enamel travel palettes. Lovely pleine aire/outdoors carryall bags to put all of the above into. Did I mention sponges. Believe me, I've bought every scrap of it.

On every trip, the first stop is ALWAYS the local art store to search for some new treasure to drag home. Note the big gorgeous looking brush with the red handle. I got it in Arezzo, Tuscany. Do I ever use it? No. The art supply biz understands our obsessions perfectly. In Europe, you'll see paintboxes with pans in every store you go into. 

Tubed watercolors make you feel like you're painting with oils and have an oily consistency when first squeezed out - rich and lush. But they can dry hard as rocks. While the pans are easier to wet and more portable.

There are a ton of how-to books for the beginning watercolor painter. I bought almost every one. And I've gone to many of watercolor "workshops" - Savannah, New Jersey, Maine, Tuscany, Devon, Provence. And I've dreamt of many more. SouthJerseyBoy will tell you.

Near Pienza, watercolor, 6 x 9"

But the truth is, you need to sit down with a jam jar of water, a basic watercolor set of 10-12 pans and some nice paper.

1. First drop a pool of water on your paper.
2. Next drop in some color with your brush, starting with a lighter, warmer color first (burnt sienna works fine).
3. While your puddle is still wet, add some darker, cooler color (French blue).
4. The blobs of colors will "bleed" into each other and form "blossoms", that's where the colors run together and you get "happy" (or unhappy) accidents.
5. You can help the paint along by tilting your paper back and forth.

6. Time to watch the paint dry. You'll learn more from this exercise than most books, workshops, videos out there IMO. I've filled stacks of sketchbooks doing these blobs.

  If you get some good painted blobs going, you've got the beginning of a nice atmospheric landscape painting. It's that easy and it's the best way to learn the properties of different pigments + color theory.
7. Lesson over. Now get cracking!

*TIP: for those watercolor-obsessed out there, if you're in London, stop in at Green and Stone of Chelsea on 259 Kings Road. They have antique watercolor sets in the back. You may find a set that's been on a Grand Tour.

Gillot’s Watercolor Medium

Carnet de voyage, I found these while cleaning out my closet. Before there were Moleskine notebooks in my life, I used to paint in travel sketchbooks. Like anything I tackle, I go overboard. I went to The Center For Book Arts on 28 West 27th Street to learn how to make these books myself and I made tons of them.
Google carnet de voyage and you get 38,200 images to pour over. But wait till after you read this post PULEEZE! Maybe I'll become the 38,201 image...qui sait?

I was already making my own watercolor paints so it was a natural. I work part-time at a pigment shop, but it took a while to get down to producing the first pans.
To make paint you need a binder - basically a glue that will make the dry pigment stick to your surface. The then-manager nudged me on, saying, "It's just like making pound cake - a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter etc and mix.."

Making oil paints is pretty straightforward, like pound cake, you add dry pigment (your flour) + Linseed oil (your wet ingredients) and mix. Watercolors are another matter. Most art technique books tell you to just go out to the art store and forgeddaboutit 

After Corot in Italy, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 "

BTW most of my hand-made sketchbooks are filled with Tuscan landscapes - an obsession at that time. I worked really small for years - 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" and smaller. Moving up to 6" x 8 1/2" was a BIG step. I even convinced Travel Roads to give me a 3-week artist residency in Poppi (not far from Arezzo) with these little watercolors.

Owl's Head, Maine, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2"

Back to making paint - I took myself off to London to an instructor from the Prince Charles' Drawing School and we spent a morning testing different formulas and making test pans. 5 days later the pans were still wet = NOT GOOD.

At home I played around with glycerine + honey + Ox Gall...yes you can almost eat your paints, BUT DON'T! Ralph Mayer say's in a pinch you can use GUM DROPS if you have no glycerine around. Finally I got it right and began to "cook up" pans and pans of lovely, rich, granular paint and it's been nonstop ever since.

Et voila! 

Eurostar Window Scene, watercolor, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2"

The French (see this IS a French-related post after all) have been way ahead of us in the travel sketchbook arena, publishing piles of facsimile carnet de voyage books. I was going to do a MACARON post today, but I was not happy with my mac watercolor, so it will just have to wait. Hang in there macaron fans !

Not Macarons...

Last Sunday, Corey did a lovely post on her friend, Shelly and French blue café au lait bols. I was reminded of the bleu bowls I saw while window shopping on rue Notre-Dame Des Champs last May in the 6ème.By the way lèche-vitrine (licking windows) is how you say window shopping in French -- it feels more accurate somehow.Are windows just more delicious in France?

*Here's a travel tip. It takes a good week and a half to get your eyes above window level in Paris. Then you can start to see the amazing architecture. Don't even try before 1 1/2 weeks...useless in my opinion.

I don't even drink coffee but I've always loved these bleu café bols. There's something about them that says grandmother's kitchen, something homey and comfortable. Maybe I've seen too many old French movies.

OK...So one GREEN bowl snuck in here. But these window still lifes are just too beautiful. Does Cézanne or Chardin own this shop? I bought a red and white café au lait bowl in France way back, made by Genevieve Lethu. I filled it with peaches and thought I'd paint it for this post...but no go :( It seems the MACARONS are still flying around in my head. Or maybe if the bowl had been BLEU?

Macarons on the Mind...

I think I'm having "separation anxiety" about leaving MACARONS to go on to other topics. This is the last MACARON post till I hit Paris for the Salon du Chocolat...just some silly stuff. I'm desperately trying to clear out my closet of old sketchbooks, wine reference, travel stuff, old clothes. An Ex once said, "When you're throwing out old things, don't look or you're lost!" I looked! and I found the parchment sheet + the bag + the photos + the crumbs from Véritables MACARONS de St-Emilion that I mentioned in my 1st macaron post. YAY! It's been lurking my Bordeaux wine reference box since 2003. Memories of my 1st French MACARON and still a few crumbs left. Ahhhh....
It seems that everywhere I look now I see MACARON shapes...I set up this still life in Paris with Arnaud DEL MON TEL MACARONS.
But don't they look an awful lot like these French pillowcushions from LivingStones?
I wasn't tempted in the least to buy any of these crazy colored MACARONS at Bon Marché.
But they remind me of these crazy colored Frisbees...
And these Yoyos...

Cherry/Macs, watercolor, 12 x 10"

I'm not going to stop painting MACARONS anytime soon. That's for sure. Maybe I better get back to cleaning the closet...who knows what other treasures lurk within :)

Macarons Payard

The Payard Patisserie is all about pale lemon yellow bows and pale lemon yellow striped boxes. You can't find a Frenchier place in New York to go pretend you're still in Paris.
I'd just about kill to have a Payard pale lemon Voyageur bags. You can get one stuffed with goodies at the Payard Bistro on 1032 Lexington Avenue.
I met François over 10 years ago while shooting food events at the James Beard House. Back then I also made "portrait business" cards, many of them for pastry chefs, the most visual and artistic chefs in the food industry.
I used to drop off the event photos in person at Restaurant Daniel and François would give me all kinds of delicious snacks. It's called multi-tasking :)
François is Niçoise and a 3rd generation pastry chef. He grew up in his grandfather's classic pâtisserie, Au Nid des Friandises on the Riviera. In 1988 he went to Paris and became pastry chef at La Tour d’Argent and then Lucas Carton. A great C.V. to come to New York and work first at Le Bernardin and later Restaurant Daniel. In 1997 he opened his own pâtisserie and bistro. I remember the opening...

Payard Macarons and Cherries, 2006, watercolor, 9" x 12"

Payard's macarons are made fresh daily. The pretty pastel flavors: Chocolate, Coffee, Pistachio, Raspberry, Lemon, and Coconut. You can get some very nice gelato here too.

Macarons For Breakfast

La Maison du Chocolat told me their macarons have a 2-day shelf life. Last week I brought home a box of 8 on Thursday and they hung around for 4 days waiting to be painted and photographed. On Sunday morning at 9:35am they disappeared.
They tasted fine to me. Then I found out they come over from France to New York 2 times a week. I bought another 3 today. They only lasted 2 hours...Their flavors come in pale neutral colors, not the crazy wild colors you see at Bon Marché for example. Even the chocolate was on the pale side but tasted deeply of Valrhona, who make a special proprietary chocolate for La Maison. Plus there is Vanilla, café, caramel and lemon. Sometimes they have raspberry and in the Fall, chestnut.

La Maison Macarons, 2006, watercolor, 10 x 12"

The outside biscuit has a nicely crunchie texture and is glossy. The interior is a creamy ganache but not too excessive or maybe I'm just getting acclimated to buttercream...Sugar is an undertone not a top note. Nice.
These beauties are not the easiest subjects to shoot or paint. They shed crumbs like crazy and roll off their assigned perch at will. As uncooperative as they are, I could paint them forever. The round shapes contrast nicely with the square box and make for compositions that are fun to play with. Plus there's a reward when the painting is done. I'm wondering if there are any openings for macaron painters on Craig's List...?
If you're not in the mood for macarons, you can always get some of their delicious creme glacée.
2 flavors in 1 scoop. Last week I tried raspberry + caramel...today pistachio + caramel. This is seriously habit-forming...

L'obsédée du MACARONS

This post is for the MACARON-obsessed.

Others need not apply.

If you google the word MACARONS you get 427,000 entries here.

Fauchon MACARONS come wrapped tightly first in a clear cellophane bag and placed inside the box - so they never get damaged till you eat them...

This is one BIG obsession.

Read Kuidaore's entry from Pierre Hermés book here. These towering macs are in Fauchon's Paris windows.

La Tartine Gourmande has another beautiful MACARON post. The macarons again. For general vicarious wasting of time while dreaming of all things Paris, MACARONS included, try Dessert First's photos on flickr. You can buy this tea set at Lenôtre and have macs every single day. Or you could go off to Pierre Hermé's pâtisserie school to follow your bliss.

Even Wikipedia is obsessed with MACARONS...Again about that Paris MACARON contest - June 1st, 2007 is the next event's date. Jean-Paul Hévin won again in the chocolate categorie. Ridiculous? No obsédée.

Fauchon 3 Macarons, 2006, watercolor,10" x 12"
Correction: my translation of Hermé's MACARON description was way off - "Une fine envelope croustillante, une forme rounde, légèrement bombée, de belle couleurs chatoyantes et un coeur moelleux..." - Chatoyante means that they caress, chatouille, that is to tickle the eye with their colours...Coeur moelleux means the center (le coeur, le coeur de la planete for example) Au cœur de ce projet, at the center of this project…
With all this MACARON research I'm almost over my obsession.

I just have to try out the macs at La Maison du Chocolat. I'll report back soon :)