Le Divorce

Le Divorce

N°128-

15x15 cm  (aprox 6"x 6'" inches)

oil on gessoboard, made in Italy

Every pastry chef has their version of the divorced.  I wonder how this name came about.

127 Beurre Demi-sel

Beurre Demi-sel

N°127-

15x15 cm  (aprox 6"x 6'" inches)

oil on gessoboard, made in Italy

I've wanted to paint this for some time but the butter gets used so quickly.  Yesterday I went to BHV to look for an oil tin.  I had an oil tin that I brought from Florence when I moved here, I loved it and had painted it numerous times.  One day I came back from the atelier, the day the cleaning lady came, and my beloved oil tin was broken, the handle had been knocked off. 

Yesterday I looked for a replacement but I couldn't find one, it is a good reminder that this is Paris, we eat butter.  I love butter.

Carmine Street

Carmine Street

80x120 cm

oil on canvas

I've been painting like a fiend to finish this before some sun at the beach near Cannes.  I thought that I could cheat some and use the palette knife then ended up scraping off almost a days work.  After I projected the photo onto the canvas, (yes, I do that) I realized that the only part of the photo that struck me originally was the part on the left with the three guys in the sun but I wasn't about to cut the canvas — not those wonderfully lightweight Italian imported ones from Pieraccini.  

Here it is, thirty or so hours of painless brushstrokes, a labor of love; more for the canvas than the subject.  Part of the difficulty in painting this was due to two things:  I prepped the canvas too light in color and then when I opened the new tube of Mars Black it wasn't black, it was a bizarre red-brown. 

Instead of wasting time looking for the invoice of purchase and trying to exchange the rotten tube, I squeezed a gob on to my palette and added Ultramarine Blue. To my delight the color is not only unusual but rich and lovely.  Now I want more of it but don't know what color it truly is.  My companion told me it is probably the end or the beginning of the mix that mistakingly was packaged.

palette knife painting -mixing paintmaking a painting of Provence

My most watched video, over 30k views. This was in 2007 during the first months in Paris. It must have been June because I visited Hyeres in May. Some guy commented that I mix too much but that's an important part of my technique and to use a palette knife on such a large surface mixing enough paint is important.

126 Haribo Polka

Haribo Polka

N°126-

15x15 cm  (aprox 6"x 6'" inches)

oil on gessoboard, made in Italy

My brushstrokes are nervous, I like them that way...  

Stylized violins and physharmonicas decorate the green part of this Haribo package.  It's a pell-mell polka:  raspberry flavored balls and licorice sticks and yellow lumps, shakin' it up.

125 KUB OR bullion

KUB OR

N°125-

15x15 cm  (aprox 6"x 6'" inches)

oil on gessoboard, made in Italy

I love packages' names.  And the French love bullion cubes.  For over two weeks this box has been sitting in my studio waiting for me to paint it.  The package seems like such an archaic design, something that was remarkable dozens of years ago.  There's nothing organic about it, no green — all primary.  I can just imagine a women wearing white gloves and a scarf, riding in a coupé thinking about how easy dinner will be because of her "golden cube"  — KUB OR.   She drops the cube in boiling water and dinner is served.  Sorry for the slightly out of focus photo. The rain falling like chains took the light from the sky today.

124 Bavaroise au Framboise

Bavaroise Framboise

N°124-

15x15 cm  (aprox 6"x 6'" inches)

oil on gessoboard, made in Italy

Here is the back of the panel.  One hundred custom made panels arrived from Tuscany last week.  Time to get cooking

We have a WINNER plus some googly-goop news

Summer in the City

 by Joan Revell Ryan has been voted with 100% consensus.


Joan, you can email me at (tuscanartist at yahoo dot it) to tell me where I need to send the lithograph.


Today I will finish the painting and post it.  I've been playing hookie from painting and feel delightfully guilty because I am writing the fiction that was once my memoirs. The first draft is one third finished, I've 35K words since May when I started over.  Here is a link to my writing blog Angie Arcangioli — ramblings of an artist in Paris or Florence where you may find a link to a very rough draft of the first page.  


More small gourmandise paintings are coming soon;  one hundred gessoed panels arrived from Italy last Thursday.

Contest winner - the poll

I was ready to pick one comment that stuck in my head then opened my computer this morning and saw another title that I like, so I've decided to let you choose which one out of the two that I like best.  And I want to say to Debbie that I really liked what you wrote on my Facebook page but then you changed the title on the blog comments.


Just let me say that  all the titles suggested are interesting and my opinion is only my own completely biased and one sided.  I apologize to whomever did not make it to the final round and promise that I'll do this again.


So the runner up that struck my eye but doesn't win anything, sorry, is:

 "Morning Commute".... 

by Laura in Seattle,  I should give you a prize anyway because you always comment here.  

And the two competing for the grand prize, which is to pick the title of the painting, and in return receive a lithograph for free are:


does anything come free these days?  No, you had to waste your time commenting here to win this.

SUMMER IN THE CITY

by Joan Revell Ryan 

AND

Cab's Eye View

by Adam

RULES FOR THE POLL:

Vote by leaving a comment below, tell which one you prefer, choose only one, only one comment per person, tell your friends to come out of the shadows and vote for you.  The title with the most votes/comments wins.

Comments will be closed Monday morning, 11 July at 8h00, that is 8.00A.M. Paris time.

....
Comments are now closed

name this painting - contest-

It's too hot to think of a name for this painting, I'd rather be sitting by a pool in the shade reading today plus it is proving to be a tedious painting full of details.  

SO

To have some fun and break the tedium of lonely studio time I thought I would ask

YOU

to help me title the above painting. 

You can click on the image to see it enlarged, the format is 120x80cm it is oil on canvas and not yet finished.  I can only hope to get it done by Friday because next week I am flying to Florence again for personal business and of course will buy some shoes and hang out at Colle Berreto and La Dolce Vita and drink a Negroni in the vapor lamps that go sSSShhhHHSSH.

HERE

below is what the winner of this contest will win:

A black and white lithograph —a braid of garlic— that I made in Florence at La Stamperia on via San Niccolo way back when in 2001.  This is a REAL lithograph on lithograph paper, it is NOT an offset or a glicee.  There is no original because the drawing was destroyed when they sanded down the stone.  Note the eyeglasses to the left, the size of the litho is 20x60 cm.

RULES OF THE CONTEST:

Leave your suggestion in the comments below, only one per person.

I will decide which title I like best, if I cannot decide I will host a poll in another post.  Once I have decided, I'll announce the winner and will send them the signed lithograph to their location in the whole wide world for FREE.  If you are in Paris I will hand deliver it.

Comments will be closed Friday at 8h00 that is 8A.M. Paris time.

I have just closed the comments.