Catherine Stock's Blog, page 4

Summer exhibitions

Posters for two of the summer shows we are getting ready for this year.
The first one is my Monday night life drawing group show.  Please come to the opening on May 24th at 6:30 pm if you are anywhere near Rignac.

Hello out there again!

Many grumbles about my lack of postings. Sorry. Here are my excuses:
1. Had a complete break/melt down stressing about getting a French driving license after driving for 45 years. Two years and 400 euros later, finally succeeded, yeay, but ordeal was a nightmare and I have spent a good deal of the last six months ranting, crying and whining, so be pleased I spared you.
2. We have had a really long, damp, chillly, muddy dark winter and I didn't escape to the southern or even western hemispheres.
3. My digital camera is acting up. Probably going to have to get a new one but meanwhile here is a lovely summery image that I found somewhere yet haven't managed to find the identity of the artist. Love it.
4. I have been posting a lot on Facebook which I like as it's so interactive and allows me to keep in touch with faraway friends and family.
So having said all that, I will get going again. My life drawing group is getting ready for our annual exhibition, I have started my herb and salad garden and am about to dig up my communal potagé. which I am going to share with my friend Nicole. Have a great bi-weekly walking group which is wonderful way not only to exercise me and the dogs but discover more of this beautiful part of the world I am so lucky to live in. 
Entendu!

Xmas activity in Rignac

 Our Monday night life drawing group kicked off Christmas in Rignac last week, followed by Christmas dinner in Le Tramizal with friends.

(I am very frustrated with the new Blogger format because I can't size and position the photos anymore.)

Sixty!

Spent Monday night painting with my group as usual in the studio. We had a fabulous model who has posed for us in the past but sadly doesn't want to anymore. She has a fabulous body, very powerful for a woman with terrific muscle tone.

As it was my birthday, I bought two bottles of Blanquette de Limoux for our break and baked an apple nut cake, but I didn't have enough eggs so softened the batter with a little cream and ended up with a soupy mess. But the group had caught wind of the event and surprised me with a delicious homemade chocolate cake and two bottles of champagne-the real thing. Can't beat the French for style.

A perfect birthday in spite of grey sky and drizzle. Merci mes amis!





 

 

Spontaneous and a bit of a scruffy birthday bash

Rounded up a few locals into my studio for a dinner to help ease me into my sixth decade...sheesh. Couldn't bring myself to getting much of a meal together- too much stressing about the bloody driving exams... so made a big pot of fish and mussel chowder supplemented with foie gras, good champagne, cheeses and a green salad, and followed by creme caramel and fruit salad. Think I got away with it: merriment spilled into the wee hours.

Babe magnet X 2!

After MUCH uming and awing and backing and forthing, Ron took the plunge, and PADDY home yesterday afternoon. It was love at first sight.

WELCOME TO DARNIS, PADDY!

Autumn harvest

Not sure how many of these pumpkins and squashes from my garden are edible, but they're rather beautiful none the less.

Matisse?

Nope. Catherine Stock.

But the master's Dance definitely comes to mind. It's one of my favourite paintings.

The ongoing dialogue with myself continues...

A collaboration

Karen Lynn Williams and I got to know each other when we were paired up by our editor, Dorothy Briley, to do a book together.  Karen and Steve, her husband, lived and worked in Malawi as Peace Corps volunteers, and Karen had written Galimoto. We have continued to work together on several projects and have visited each other in Haiti, New York and most recently in France where I persuaded Karen to join my life drawing class. 

Here is her account of the evening:

The Nude
Figure drawing class, France

It is the delicate features; Nose and mouth and browsWhich the artist sees.The model, nakedwears a studied malaiselarger than life, she is “full”a kind word.












Look at her fingers, The artist says,beautiful and the wisps of curlabout her face, beautifulbreasts full to her waistif one could seethe waist in her folds.The artist does not see the scar;the nude has had her stomachshrunken(for a short timeas these things seem to go)the folds of flesh cascade tothighs larger than two of mine,each.

















The artist saystry a wash, fill it with color, you see the designthere on her robe interesting, no?Negative space,the turn of her neck,the angle of her chin.Five minute poses  like a poem, no? the artist saysa new pose the figure turns awayarms thrown up, head tilted bold angle and arc of her backdraw the eyeto light at play with the dark twist of her neckto form lines thick and thin in turnflow across the pagethe back a soft milk white roundnessthe texture of the nudeher arms swing downand a slender finger tip dips just so
toward the dusk silk pillow on the floor.

Style vs Content

I was debating with my friend Basil once about whether subject or style was more important in a painting.  I was arguing that any subject, in skilled hands, could be elevated into something of merit: think Cezanne's apples.

I have also been struggling recently to push myself beyond what I refer to as "so what?" work. Robert Genn used my note to him as a subject of one of his letters: http://clicks.robertgenn.com/so-what.php













To this end, I have been reworking old pieces to see if through persistence and play, I can make anything of them.














Reworking forms and adding some texture, contrast and detail has helped, but now I look at this picture and all I see is some throwback to the 60's. Time to move on.