Paul's week 11th-18th June

Paul is freshly back from Australia where he is living for most of the year now.  He comes back to Europe at about this time to take care of the Jerwood Drawing Prize which he and his wife Anita founded. We are lucky enough to grab him for a week's teaching in Les Bassacs.

If its Friday it must be Bonnieux

Anyone who has painted with David will know this stand of trees is a favourite subject.

Perfect picnic spot

Oppède le Vieux provided David's group with a perfect picnic spot on a sunny and windless day. 

The decline of the village started in 1731 with an earthquake that destroyed part of the castle.  In 1793 revolutionaries pillaged the village and the church and little by little Oppède was abandoned.  By 1936 there were only 12 people living there.  In the 1960's a group of artists and intellectuals began to re-inhabit the village and the restoration of the houses has continued since then.

Inside out at the Pompidou Centre Paris

The French photographer JR has an exhibition entitled Inside Out at the Pompidou Centre Paris until September.  He has set up a photo booth which takes a black and white portraits and then prints them to A0 size.  The poster floats down through the entrance hall.  The idea is that you then paste your poster up somewhere in the world.  Isabelle, who is studying in Paris stopped by and queued for an hour to have her portrait taken in the machine.  A bindi is superimposed digitally on the photo.  The woman operating the machine was called away, and left Isabelle to take her own photo.  She wasn't sure where the lens was, and was captured whilst still trying to work it out! 

You can upload your own black and white portrait and receive a poster to paste up by going to http://www.insideoutproject.net/

The point of the project is to challenge everyone to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world.  He always works in poster size images and his projects are often political.  Read more about him at http://www.dragolab.com/en/books/catalogue/wrinkles-of-the-city-shanghai

And then the rain came . . .

Nearly a week of stormy weather and a daughter visiting from Paris has meant that the Les Bassacs Blog has ground to a halt.  There were some spectacular sunsets though, this one captured by Dibbs from her bedroom window, note the thickness of the cloud !

During the thunderstorm that followed this sunset,  our neighbours set fire to their chimney and there was great excitement when the Sapeur Pompier turned up to put it out. 

We needed the rain though as everything was terribly parched.  Today the skies have lifted and the clouds are being blown south by a moderate Mistral.  Tomorrow is picnic day and the group will be tucking into a tomato and tapenade tart at Oppède le Vieux. 

13, unlucky for some

This week there are 13 around the table, so as is traditional at Les Bassacs, Christopher Malcolm has put in an appearance at the head of the table to bring the numbers up to 14.  He is Hazel's bear and is now probably 80 years old.  As you can see he has suffered rot and damage and has been extensively patched up.  I think that he was a Merrythought bear, but he has lost his label and is entirely bald except for some tufts of mohair on his thighs and in his ears!

Oil Painting with Jeremy le Grice week 2

There can be nothing better than a Sunday afternoon painting in the sun and dappled shade of an olive grove in Provence . . .

la petite ruelle à nuit

Les Bassacs at 22.30 tonight

Early morning St Saturnin

Today the group painted above St Saturnin les Apt, looking down on the village over the pea green reservoir.  During the morning ominous black shadows appeared in the water.  They turned out to be large cat fish basking in the sunny shallows.

Choosing a painting spot isn't always that easy . . .

Yesterday was Murs

As a bit of an escape from the heat down in the valley, Jeremy's group went painting in Murs. We parked under the beautiful ancient oak tree at one end of the village where some people stayed to paint, whilst others wandered into the village itself.