It was another peaceful day high on the hills above the French Riviera. Even the noises that broke the silence, actually seemed to add to the peace. The constant cricket, the bird with a chirp that sounded like it was sneezing, the occasional jet and the odd child.
First and only port of call was St. Paul de Vence, a village on and almost behind the next hill, famed for being a haunt of artists. Nowadays it's a place for tourists and all the artists who live there, and plenty of others, have little shops. There are certainly some great places there for perusing art. And the town itself is a beautiful, old, walled affair and is particularly enchanting in the streets off the main tourist arteries. The latter are quite choked with international cholesterol.
After wandering around, we all met up for bieres et Oranginas at a large café next to a boules-playing area (pétanquerie?). Here we watched local characters demonstrate their skill at France's national sport. Chuck Norris and Deadly Pipe-Smoking Woman seemed to be thrashing the local mafia.
The trip inspired even more of us to do paintings. Our unimaginably generous host had bought a huge order of canvases of various sizes and invited us to perform art on them. It was one of those exercises that really shows you that putting paint on something and getting a pleasing result is not so difficult. Getting something great, is another matter, of course, but some of us succeeded. Us, not meaning me. Although I was pleased with my red background, that became a Rothko hommage.
Final game of the day was the name game, where names of famous people have to be described to members of your team.
For pictures see: Flickr
No comments:
Post a Comment