Oils and Pastels by Margaret Dyer

https://mailchi.mp/1c15b203acde/margaret-dyer-vernissage-2899389 Come and see the works of Kathy Kuryla, Ann Maree Healey, Deb Wicks, Diane Weissman, Sophie Curlee, Liz Glatzer, Brigette Marten and Christie Jackson, created under the direction of Margaret Dyer during a two-week workshop at La Bonne Etoile, Fontaine-Fourches, France. Friday, July 20, 2018, 6:00-10:00 p.m. https://mailchi.mp/1c15b203acde/margaret-dyer-vernissage-2899389

On Sunday morning we went to a brocant in a town about a half hour away. We meandered from table to table, picking up French things... I bought 5 mismatched glass knife-rests; Kippy sets her table with them and I thought -- what nice little things on the table. Now I'm going to have to invite people to dinner at my house so I can use them. I also got a couple of vintage posters: a French Charlie Chaplin poster and one illustrated by Jean-Jacque Sempe,  a well-known cartoonist here. Meg got the sweetest opalescent glass, silver- trimmed salt cellars, for which Kippy expressed her interest if Meg decided not to grab them. I told Meg not to let go of them. Monday, yesterday--we worked all day in the studio. Meg posed in the morning and we worked from our photo shoot images after lunch. We worked until we were called down to dinner around 8:30.  We chat while we work. When someone inadvertently drops a pastel we know immediately by the exasperated moan or cuss word (that could b...

After loading the van with easels and paints and canvases and picnic baskets, we had great aspirations to paint at the river side in Moret sur Loing, reenacting the impressionists' painting days. What a memory to go home with, and hopefully we'd have sweet paintings to capture the moment. We had ice cream instead. We left Kippy to be the lone dedicated artist. With our huge ice cream cones, the rest of us roamed through winding neighborhoods where the locals were preparing for their Bastille Day celebrations. Tents and loudspeakers were being set up, bands were preparing their stages, locals were arriving with their coolers. A couple of hours later we made it back to the river, where Kippy was still painting, and we set up a picnic table for our dinner. We sipped wine and gobbled down our pasta salad and tomatoes tossed with olive oil and basil, tabouli and cheese, cleaned up our area, loaded the van and headed out to the Chateau de Vaux Le Vicomte for the candlelit tour and ...

Did I forget to post on Thursday and Friday? I did. Oy. It gets a little crazy here. We worked all day in the studio on Thursday. On Friday we went to the market in Brey, a neighboring town. We shared a bag of huge ripe cherries as we went from clothing vendor to cheese vendor to olive vendor to clothing vendor to clothing vendor. Some of us left with bags of 10 eruo dresses and tops. Then we went home and ate our fresh vegetables and cheeses.

Today is Bastille Day, the day celebrating the 1789 people's storming of the Bastille, a fortified state prison where many were imprisoned for speaking out against the French monarchy. Over 200 people died that day. It marks a turning point for the French revolution -- the end of the monarchy and the beginning of the French republic. In the following decade, both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were killed. We will join in the celebrations later today. We'll start our evening by going to the Chateau Vaux le Vicomte for a late night candle-lit evening and fireworks. The festivities will begin at 11:00 p.m. This should be interesting to see how many of us older folks can stay awake. But this morning we'll head out to the studio, maybe take a nap after lunch (that should help), then around 5:00 we will go to Moret sur Loing to paint where Alfred Sisley painted, and where we will too. Then on to the Chateau Vaux Vicomte. I'll post pictures later. Happy Bastille Da...

 We caught the train to Paris, a 50 minute ride through the countryside, past countless villages and vast manicured fields of something or other. I loved peering into fenced back yards as we whizzed by to see their tidy vegetable gardens and garden tools. If I were on the other side of the house, I'd be peering into their lace curtained windows. From the train station we took the Metro to the Musee Jacquemart-Andre, a gorgeous 19th century villa (I've taken the liberty of stealing a few pictures from their web site), to see the Mary Cassatt exhibit. We leaned into the paintings and pastels, as close as the guards would allow, to decipher her technique. We were familiar with quite a few paintings, but there were many we had never seen. The next day in the studio, several people tried utilizing her methods. Before going to lunch at the Jacquemart-Andre Cafe, some of us posed at a little picture booth... Lunch at the Jacquemart-Andre Cafe... I had their Americ...