Happy New Year!

Belated Happy New Year

New Year, New beginnings.

 Last year saw us for the first time in 8 years not hosting art holidays and to be honest I was bereft.  Its what I do, its what I love….but….things move on and things change.

We are planning to move but in the meantime I decided to find more time to discover what I Iiked to create and discover new ways to do it.

I also had the opportunity to go out and do workshops outside Bandouille to teach and to learn taking in a part of France I did not know.  It was a joy. And I think that is where I left you.

  Sketch  into Castillon le Bataille

First was Chez Castillion on the grand Dordogne.  A beautiful venue specifically for writers as a retreat hosted by Mickey and Janie Wilson.

I met some wonderful talented people there.  

The weather was perfect, although maybe a touch on the "too" warm side and the scenery wonderful. The pool helped..

I have many sketches from there and many that I would like to paint at a later stage.

After this crazy week I spent a few days a couple of hours further south near Aiguillon where I painted for a day with Christian Couteau and a group of keen followers.  I stayed in this lovely abode which I found on Airbnb for 20 euros a night with my own pool.  Bargain and such nice people who ran it.  It was only 10 mins from where I was to meet my fellow painters. 

Again an amazing experience and so much learnt in such a short space of time.  Cant believe how many sketches we managed in a morning.  Here 3 of 7

After my short spate in the Dordogne I spent a week in the Bordeaux area with my bestie and my girls.  Another area I had not before investigated fully.  Our day in St. Emillion was particularly lovely and ironically 10 mins from Chez Castillon.   We also visited Saintes.

House sale
The house is now officially on the market after not succeeding in finding a suitable agent here sell it.  So we have found on online company who specialises in this field.  If you click here you can see what we have to offer.  So if you are interested please come through the site with your enquiries.

TRAVEL - Madrid

 After the worst cold of my life over Christmas and New Year I went to Madrid to visit my daughter and partner and was warmly welcomed into his fathers home.  I had never been to mainland Spain and the city was beautiful and so calm.  A very strange experience next to London or Paris.  We ventured out into the country and stayed near beautiful Toledo in Grandmas house and visited La Mancha, site of the windmills from the fables of Don Quioxte.  I was able to relax there and sit and sketch together with Jose (my daughters boyfriend) and we did these in very little time.  It was the first time he had sketched let alone plein air.  I love this work.

La Mancha                                                 Mine                                                                Joses

I have now returned home, armed with pictures that I want to sketch including a photo of Jose's Nanna Fernanda who passed last year.  This is a quick sketch before I attempt a larger portrait of her.

And a great pic of his dad to whom I am very grateful for his hospitality in his home.

A very special time was had there (even with the three of them ill with the same cold I had)..

So much to see to see....But I intend to be back very soon.

Now to plan the rest of the year.

I have been asked by Colourcraftltd.com to feature in their February blog.  So I have selected some materials from their catalogue that I have never used before….just for fun.

Watch this space…..I will send a link when I have completed the project.  I promise it will be fun and very much out of my comfort zone.

If you have not heard of Colourcraft before, they are the original producers and suppliers of Brusho, but that is only a fraction of what they supply. Please visit and discover the treasures they hold for the keen crafter.

I use them for nearly all of my creative needs. 

So with that in mind I shall be on again very soon and feel free to comment and ask any questions.

A Bientot 

Bix

Of course obligatory picture of my fluffy boy Arty!  Bx

A Brand New Start!

I know I know….April last year was the last time I wrote this blog, but I have been active all over Facebook and we have recently launched our Twitter hashtag (is that the right way to annouce it???)  Bixxy@bandouille1, so please join us on there too.  And if you feel that I am not communicating send me a message to give me a kick!!!  I also belong to various watercolour groups on the web…so I have not been idle by any means.

 So here we are in 2014 and my main resolution is to get to grips with this blog and we have an exciting year in store. Many of you already have seen our diary for this year so far but here is the line up which is also advertised in January’s Artists and Illustrators magazine.  We are so priviledged to have back Keiko Tanabe, Eugen Chisnicean, Joanne Boon Thomas and Jane Minter who all have had workshops here at Bandouille and already have had some of our former guest book with these artists for this year.  A compliment all round I think you would agree.  So exciting stuff and we are adding to this wonderful array the stunning work of both Amanda Spencer and Stephie Butler, all of whom work in pricipally watercolour.  All details to be found on our website.

To find out more about us and what we do and what is here please read this article written by one of our guests (Nikki Griffiths) we had in October!    http://www.seos-art.org/news/125    

This is another article written on the blog of Doron Art

Lovely to know that we are someones guilty pleasure!!!! To those outside the UK our house has been dressed like the Bourneville brand of chocolate. We are now someones guilty pleasure.  How wonderful!

Doron writes

 "I am sure you remember my painting holiday to France last year at Bandouille… I had some nice painting time after the Christmas holiday and I wanted to paint special thank you message. The holiday was so good that it remind me another good thing… Yes a great chocolate I am sure we all know!

Happy New Year Bix and Drew and thank you for a great holiday"

To read his full article Click here....Lovely read!
http://doronart.com/2013/06/02/bandouille/
 It was such a wonderful thing to know how much Bandouille is enjoyed by our guests and that is what we are striving for.  Also take a peek at the testimonials on our FB page and on our website too..

Please follow this blog for further news on future guest tutors and of course on Twitter too…..and always feel free to comment too.

ART

My artistic year started towards the end of the the Christmas break and I

have been busy putting together ideas for my textures and techniques (see above) classes and creating a small book to help me format a good balanced layout for exercises.  Whilst playing I created a few little gems and these dancers were just a happy accident.  But that’s the beauty of watercolour.  Sometimes things happen that you just don’t expect and the results can be fantastic.

From here I have also promised my self that this year I will paint more pictures for me from my reference library and the Pomegrantes just screamed at me (or Grenade in French) and I just had to try them.  I always seem to choose things that I know are out of my depth but I like the challenge and felt that I met this one full on. I was pleased with the result but regretted that it was so small (just under A4).  So now I want to revisit and do a larger version, perhaps with less fiddling too.

A site that I have joined in the last couple of weeks (United by watercolour – check it out) challenged us to doing our own self portraits, so here is mine in the 3 stages that it took me to do.  Great fun and my first.  Im not a great fan of the camera, or my face, but wanted to be a bit different and quirky and show something that was ME.

 I liked the results and that’s saying something!  Great fun! 



Next challenge from that site is to paint a piece of work from your favourite Artist.  So one of mine is John Singer Sargeant these are the ones I am juggling between Hard choice!  So pop by next time and see what I decided!!!  I'm think the Shadows on the house, or The Lesson. 

 Which would you choose?

I also enjoy just sitting down in front of the telly and sketching and drawing of an evening.  Especially at this time of year.  My children at Christmas bought me this gorgeous selection of drawer knobs, which I adore.  But instead of all being screwed into designated pieces of furniture, I have many other plans for  them before that.

At present I am just painting and drawing them in different ways with different mediums and on different papers too, but would also like to try collage, fabric and maybe mount some in a box frame.

We shall see!

  

That's it for the time being.  I don't want to bore you all.  I shall be posting items as I get them from now on rather than grouping it all together like this and see if that works better for us. 

So keep in touch and see more posts on Chippy and how he is getting on, the renovation on the Chapel and gardening if the weather allows.  Also I will be posting regularly on various crafty items that I have been creating too.

See you next time.

Bx