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January 2005
I’ve been drawing and painting, even if we never got the new stuff
on the website. Here’s a sampling, including a few sketches that will appear
in the book. |
 The
famous falaises (cliffs) of Etretat, on the English Channel. |
 I
loved the war statues we saw all over France. This one is from Etretat. |
 On
the north Atlantic island of Belle Ile, a tree gnarled by the wind. |
 The
waterfront promenade at St. Jean de Luz, in southwest France. |
 In
early spring, leafless plane trees look like Howard Hughes’ hands. These
were in St. Jean de Luz. |
 Jazz
accordionists caught on the fly in St. Sebastian, Spain. |
 In
Cassis, we welcomed the season’s first topless bathers. |
 Beth
and I had a lovely dinner in this place in Nice’s old city. |
 A
view of our room at the Hotel Grimaldi in Nice. Note
the weirdo in the mirror. |
 The
Iles Sanguinaires, Corsica, painted under a blazing sun. |
 In
Tangier, Morocco, Matisse found a world as exotic as his imagination. |
 The
picturesque Collioure harbor painted from behind an agave plant. |
 I
loved this “Moorish Castle” behind the church in Collioure. |
 This
was our side of Collioure, nestled between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. |
 I
painted these “cork oaks” on a hill above Collioure. Stripped of
their bark, they look like James Brown’s backup singers. |
 After
seeing the Tour de France, I imagined a bike race through Collioure. |
 Our
room in Honfleur, though the table was considerably more level than this. |
 Portrait
of Beth, painted in Collioure. |
 We
lived for a year in Collioure. Here’s My Studio Under the Eaves. |
 My
60th-birthday self portrait, imagining myself in Matisse’s famous picture
at the Beau Rivage. |
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January
16
Here are some sketches I did during our time in Paris. It was gray, drizzly,
and extremely cold most of the time we were there, so I spent most of my
time drawing inside. |
 A
sketch of our living room at 14, rue du Perche.
|
 Watercolor
rendering of the Perche living room. |
 View
of the courtyard at 14, rue du Perche. |
 Oil
painting of the Perche courtyard. An attempt to convey the grayness of Paris
in winter. |
 Sacre
Coeur at twilight. |
 Old
man and dog at a cafe'. Acrylic painting from a black and white photograph by
Iris Wolf. |
 Le
Bon Marche--a large department store--a few days before Christmas. Caught, thankfully,
from across the street at a quiet cafe'.
|
 A
favorite of Matisse's "goldfish" paintings at Centre Pompidou.
|
 The
door of Matisse's old apartment building at 19, quai St. Michel.
|
 Self-portrait
at our second apartment on Ste Croix de la Bretonnerie. |
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November 27, 2002
Mostly these will
be pictures from the field, made in my notebook on the run, sometimes with scribbled
lines next to them about color and texture and tone in case I want to do a later
painting. The drawings and paintings below are—with the exception of one—from previous adventures
Beth and I have taken together. –J.M. |
 My
writing table back home at 501 Holly, where I started writing books…
|
 Our
room in Lourmarin, France, in 1997. I loved the shapes of the wrought iron…
|
 This
was the view from our balcony at Havana’s Hotel Santa Isabella in 1999…
|
 Studying
this vase of sunflowers outside my cousin’s Mississippi lake house, I decided
Van Gogh was a realist…
|
 Speaking
of Van Gogh, here’s a quick sketch of the Arles café he made famous
in The Café Terrace at Night… |
 A
watercolor sketch of the Abbey de Senaque in Provence, with the lavender in full
bloom…
|
 This
is a stylized view of Havana Bay, made from the ramparts of an old fort across
from the Malecon…
|
 The
Hotel Torre di Cala Piccolo in Porto Santo Stefano, Italy, where we enjoyed long
shadowy cocktail hours overlooking the Mediterranean…
|
 Sitting
on this terrace in Old Havana, we absorbed city sounds from salsa to opera to
pop…
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