Paris Studio

My Beautiful Paris Studio - watercolor on paper, 12" x 15" 

Toni said...Those macaron's look so good. Looking forward to seeing more of your Paris watercolors. So I thought I'd show you my Paris hotel l'atelier (studio).

My bed/work table again.

Eurobrat and Naturegirl said...You slept on the floor? That's dedication to your art. Yes, I sleep on the floor since I wrecked my back day-trading = now no back problems. Plus I get more space to dry damp watercolors.

Anonymous said...Beautiful paintings. Technical question: Do you photograph your still lifes and then paint them or are you painting them directly from life? I do both. I shoot the still lifes to capture the changing light.Then I do thumbnail pencil value studies to figure out the composition. I use photography because my subjects don't always hang around very long - I tend to eat them.

A closeup of my Paris worktable. The time says 5:55 AM. I'm a "lark". I get up at 4:30 AM wherever I am. I've no choice in the matter but it's a good time to paint before I run out and start the day.

I picked Hotel La Louisiane because of this photo of their well-lite bathroom. My teacher, David Dewey recommended painting in the hotel bathroom, especially at night.

I used this well-lite bathroom to setup and shoot my still lives.

Kris said-Thanks for the glimpse of the glass teapot. So voilà the glass teapot. The pomagranate is from the Marché de Buci next door.

Café Mondrian on the corner of rue de Seine always has a welcoming still life set up and ready to paint. I'd shoot it as I passed by but never sat down for a proper petit déjeuner.

Too busy running

Beautiful Macarons...

Ladurée Lemon macaron, watercolor 10" x 12"

There were plenty of macarons at the Paris Salon du Chocolat and I painted many more in my hotel room. We won't discuss how many I ate...

Chocolate was there for sure, but all flavors were represented. I bought a bag of 10 and forgot to protect them from the chocolate bars and boxes in my bag opening night. When I got home I had 1 big mushed mac :) This HUGE book was for sale at the Paris choco salon - showing macs bigger than your head! Called, Un Amour de Macaron. Everyone LOVES macarons.
I spotted this postcard on a Paris street. It made me think of macarons... Macs on the mind !
The macaron colors can be so pretty not to mention the flavors...
At the NY Chocolate Show, Mad Mac NYC was happy to provide us with plenty of macarons.
This is my Paris hotel bed/worktable. I more or less slept on the floor so the paintings could dry. I have lots more ParisBreakfasts watercolors to show you!

Beautiful Bars...

The once "plain" chocolate bar is the HOT item these days. Every choco company is making them. "Percentage bars" let you know how much cocoa is inside. I just wish more thought was given to the outside here. The French are visually inventive as always...

Chocolat Foucher, above, have cleverly stayed with their 20's Déco wrapper designs. Jean-Paul Hévin goes for the "naked" tablette with just his brand accross the top like a Louis Vuiton purse.

Look at these crazy-shaped orange chocolate bars from maitre chocolatiere, Arnaud Larher. The flavors too are adventurous - apricot with coconut!? These bars are from La Mère de Famille. Again all is revealed + interesting flavors... These French black wrappers work here, because of the brilliant colors (irradiating color theory - black makes other colors look brighter and lighter). And the colors connote the exotic origins of the cacao bean within.Hershey's jumped into the race at the NY Chocolate show introducing these new bars and blasting the percentages. They're smaller in size... What do you think of them? Guittard is the oldest producer of fine chocolate in the US and of French origin too. They take great care in every step of production to supply the best chocolate to US pastry chefs. But I'd love to see a bit more umph to their new, but rather traditional choco bar wrappers... I think I'll become a chocolate package designer when I grow up :)

Paris Hearts SALON DU CHOCOLAT

After double posting this weekend I thought I'd finished with chocolate for a bit. I even thought of not posting today. But four days at the New York Chocolate show gave me a sense of scale. The average Parisien is mad for chocolate and has been crazy for chocolate longer than we New Yorkers can lay claim.
Over 100,000 people attend the Paris Salon du Chocolate for 5 days.

The individual stands are HUGE - long displays of chocolate like you've never seen!

And walls of buyers too. Ah, the decisions...
Every Paris arrondissement has it's small local family-run artisanal chocolate shops and they've been around for ages. Residents are loyal and buy chocolates weekly as they buy baguettes daily from the local boulangerie. And don't forget the small chocolate shops all over France!

The space at Porte de Versailles is similar to the Javits Convention center in size and height.

A lot of serious discussion goes on about the chocolate.

It may take me a week to get through all my chocolate show stories. Be patient.

Then we can forget chocolate and move on or not :)

Paris Chocolat Couture

I wanted to show you the Paris Salon du Chocolat fashions before they melt..
The star of the show was La Maison du Chocolat's rain(?) coat with umbrella. The matching black Bull dog can be seen here... The outfit went with their new Cubism Collection of chocolate.
The other gowns were less whimsical and looked like you might actually wear them out of the show to some grand affair...
A very pretty creation by Chocolats-Pralus.
But so much..
Dark brown... Well they do look better on the models than off...
Do chocolate dresses have to be dark brown? I loved the whimsy and wild flights of imagination of the New York Chocolate fashion show. I guess I'm a little biased :)

Chocolate Dips

There seems to be a lot of dipping going on at these chocolate events and good thing too. What could be nicer than to enhale and see molten chocolate? This fruit stick dipped at the Chocolat Weiss stand #75 tasted out of this world... The Cote D'Ivoire stand at #72 was pouring/smothering (not dipping) hot chocolate on top of 1/2 a banana - one of the tastiest bites at the NY show! Here, the pot of melting chocolate. You can see the hunks of solid chocolate in the process of dissolving... In Paris, Cote D'Ivoire served up sliced pineapple smothered in hot chocolate :) The Mexican stand in Paris demonstrated using a wooden molé(?). Then you dipped chunks of bread in the sauce... Heck I'm not sure what this thing is? Help me out here :) In Paris they were what looked like little rolled up cookies... It tasted incredible and melted instantly in your mouth.

Fancy professional chef dipping at the Paris Salon du Chocolat. The Michel Cluizel stand was set up to show how chocolates are made.Dipped dried fruit from LA Burdick - I've tasted their dark chocolate-dipped pears at Takashimaya's Tea Box in NY...very wonderful! 

Some Chocolate Silliness...

It's not all serious chocolate observations at the Chocolate Show this year... This is the pink ice cream spoon necklace I mentioned made by Master pastry chef, Martin Howard of Brasserie 8 1/2. Baskin Robbins sponsored the outfit with chocolate supplied by Guittard.
Martin has many talents. There's another side to Martin - the "Ask Chocolatina" side. Every year he/she performs in the Culinary theater at the show doing demos not to be missed! Last night Chocolatina made us Chocolate Poppers.
Along with tasting the demo we got to see Martin and his Variety gals dance and sing some relevant show tunes..
Et voilà the yummy Poppers! There's lots more nonsense to be had at Ask Chocolatina. Martin is multi-gifted :)
Another chocolate cure was to available at Michel Cluizel, stand #30.
Here, a chocolate test you could take, tasting and then rating the chocolates at Marquise de Sévigné stand #42. I'm going back to actually take the test. Their French chocolates are lovely..
I thought this was a witty version of the mad-about-macarons tendance (trend) that is going on in Paris. From Michel Cluizel. Must be chocolate inside...
Have I run out of chocolaterie to report from the New York Chocolate show? Two more days to go...