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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
there are banks of display cases full of colored pigments.
I've been wanting to record them and then come home and try to match the colors with paint...
First to match the pigments on my palette,which by the way, is an old enamel kitchen tray found on Ebay...
And then to match the colors swatches on a test sheet of paper. The next step is to make a painting...
My watercolor teacher, David Dewey, used to say, the painting is first of all, set up on your palette.
Get your colors down there first.
I used to take a ton of pictures of his palette mixings...
Then put it down on the paper.
I'd love to select a few of these bottles and make a painting from just those colors - what's known as doing a "limited palette" painting.
Another Dewey trick was to use your dirty water to put the washes down on the paper. It's easier to see where the water is on the white paper if there are bits of pigment in the wash. For most watercolor painters painting with clean water is like religion!
Here's a watercolor paintbox I'd love to have. A client of Wendy Brandes Jewelry designed this for herself using a poison ring bezel!Claus Oldenburg of the Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture, said
he does most of his idea sketching at the dinner table...Wouldn't this paintbox ring be a tremendous help?
Monday, July 30, 2007
I used to collect airline silverware..Didn't everyone?
Didn't you?
AirFrance still makes a very nice travel spoon...I've moved on to cafe spoons, even though I don't drink much coffee.
These ink spoon sketches by Wayne Thiebaud are so casual and easy looking.
Spoons are a natural in still life paintings.They act as vectors or arrows and they add rhythm and movement to a watercolor.
Last week JoyfulArtist Jan wrote me about
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's Spoonbridge and Cherry
sculpture in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
This spoon is 29 ft. 6 in. x 51 ft. 6 in. x 13 ft. 6 in.!!!
This spoon is my Mecca - I have to see this!
Spoons, as I mentioned before add shine and maybe a touch of whimsey.
And they hold things nicely.
The master spoon painter is Chardin.
Really The MASTER STILL LIFE painter.
This cup is so inviting and everyday and yet so painterly. You would never mistake if for a photo.
There's a terrific collection of Chardins grouped together at the Louvre.
Another "Mecca" I must visit again...
Alison was saying that spoons are hard to paint..
Not really - spoons have anatomy just like the figure.
There's the bowl or head of the spoon. Then the neck and then the tip or tail of the spoon.
Each influences the other.
But SPOONS are eating utensils and they've been around for ages - since Paleolithic times.
Shells, certainly clam shells were used as spoons, as well as containers for holding paint.
What would we do without spoons?
You can't eat ice cream with a fork?
Most still lifes would be much improved if a spoon was present in my opinion...
Spoons are a natural in still life paintings.They act as vectors or arrows and they add rhythm and movement to a watercolor.
Last week JoyfulArtist Jan wrote me about Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's Spoonbridge and Cherry
sculpture in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
This spoon is 29 ft. 6 in. x 51 ft. 6 in. x 13 ft. 6 in.!!!
This spoon is my Mecca - I have to see this!
Spoons, as I mentioned before add shine and maybe a touch of whimsey.And they hold things nicely.
The master spoon painter is Chardin.Really The MASTER STILL LIFE painter.
This cup is so inviting and everyday and yet so painterly. You would never mistake if for a photo.
There's a terrific collection of Chardins grouped together at the Louvre.
Another "Mecca" I must visit again...
Alison was saying that spoons are hard to paint..Not really - spoons have anatomy just like the figure.
There's the bowl or head of the spoon. Then the neck and then the tip or tail of the spoon.
Each influences the other.
But SPOONS are eating utensils and they've been around for ages - since Paleolithic times.Shells, certainly clam shells were used as spoons, as well as containers for holding paint.
What would we do without spoons?
You can't eat ice cream with a fork?
Most still lifes would be much improved if a spoon was present in my opinion...
Friday, July 27, 2007
Sometimes I wish I could spend an entire vacation inside a French supermarket / hypermarche.Or any foreign market for that matter.
I remember hanging out in Tokyo grocery stores for ages...
I brought home this Banania chocolate tin years ago.It's now a "vintage" tin!
I took it to David Dewey's watercolor class when we were doing "yellow"only still lifes...
I took it to David Dewey's watercolor class when we were doing "yellow"only still lifes...
An old "yellow" study - this is from my pre-macarons days...
These French yogart glass jars make perfect water containers.And how often do you see a Vermeer in an American supermarket?
This was formerly a French plastic yogurt container.Plastic is way easier to bring home than glass...
The contents of a tin or box are usually irrelevant to me - I almost always toss them away to lighten the load home.
When I was shoe designing I bought this beautiful tin in London.
Pouring thick, gooey Lyle's Golden Syrup down your hotel bathroom sink is NOT a very good idea.
I love all the animals on European food containers...Do we only get to see animals on "organic" foods in the US?
It's as if the source of the food is irrelevant here :(
I would like to see more cows and goats please...
Aren't these yogurt boxes pretty?And you don't have to read anything to know what's inside.
Here's one container I discovered in the supermarket that I buy to drink while I'm in Paris. It makes a terrific snack after traipsing around all day.
REAL gazpacho from SPAIN!!!
And it tastes EXCELLENT too
And would you believe - Tropicana is the producer!?
Dear Tropicana,
Could you please bring this Spanish gazpacho to New York?
I'd like to buy a ton of it :)
Thursday, July 26, 2007
A ParisBreakfasts reader requested a birthday-macaron watercolor.Natch I had to throw in a cherry/cerise...
My 2 favorite things to paint = macarons + cherries!
I could paint cherries all day long...I could eat cherries all day long...
Who couldn't?
Yesteday in the mail arrived this cherry necklace I ordered from La Fille du Consul!Now I'll have beautiful cherry models even when the season ends.
Spoons are another good painting subject - they add that bit of essential shine...
Macarons are the perfect geometric shape to draw and paint.Some macarons are more geometrically fun to paint than others...
I counted in my Flickr pictures - They said;We found 21 results for your photos matching CHERRIES.
We found 32 results for your photos matching macarons
This is my favorite macaron picture.I never even went inside :(
But I think I remember where it is...
Next trip in October, I promise to take a good look and report back the details!
Matching macaron colors...I could do this all day long :)
Back to painting macarons and cherries...
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
OK, another chapter on "MY BRILLIANT CAREER"...On a shoe designing trip to Spain, I took a vacation to Morocco.
I fell in love with the souks and bazaars, took loads of pictures
and dreamt of doing a coffee table book on them. Ever practical, I figured I'd better do a European flea market guide first. Since the shoe company was sending me to London, Paris, and Rome, I piggy-backed flea market research onto the shoe trip. The Mediterranean "book" would have to wait.First day out in London's Bermondsey Market, I met a free-lance dealer, Graham, who became my flea market research assistant. What did I know of antiques. The page shown is from a pull-out section for Mademoiselle magazine. Having no typewriter, I hand printed everything...
Grossett & Dunlap saw the Mademoiselle article and asked me to make it into a book. Off I went to design shoes and drag Graham along to explain silver marks and dealer tips in all the flea markets at the same time. 
Here's a spread from the Paris Puce section..
Next I approached Mademoiselle on the souks and bazaars idea. They were thrilled! And a book contract followed from Grosset. I'd earned my street creds and this time I got comped by all the individual tourist offices to do guest travelwriting in their countries - all expenses paid! I got comped to Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, Isreal, Iran. I joined a group of travel agents to eat my fill of pistachios and caviar. Pas mal.
I had no "research assistant" for this project and mostly used my imagination to come up with stories on the flea markets of Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, Israel, Greece, Yugoslavia, Iran.
The book went to "blues" (the first publishing test run used for correcting errors etc.) But the 1979 Iran hostage crisis put the kybosh on the Med book and it was shelved.
I went on to do a US flea market guide. First for Mademoiselle and then a 3rd book for Grosset. But problems surfaced. I don't like to drive and it became all writing and little drawing. 
I did articles for Art News and others. Even an illustrated column for a travel magazine. I accumulated a lot of antique junk in the process. But time to move on to another career. To be cont. Tuesday, July 24, 2007
It's Piu Piu's birthday today!
I discovered PYLONES 17 years ago when I admired cookbook author Dori Greenspan's plastic necklace at a party. Next trip I made a beeline for PYLONES' then tiny closet-size shop in Galerie Vivienne.
Now they have 6 shops in Paris, 2 in New York + Hong Kong + THE WORLD
I got the necklace, the earings, and the bracelet.
I still wear them and I still get compliments.
with the intention of making small colorful items, especially animals - useful toys for adults.
I wish I'd gotten this kitchen grater last trip...
Whether you buy something or not...Their merchandise never fails to amuse.
It's Yellow Bird's birthday too, He's a New York bird from Elie Zabar's Kids store on Madison Avenue...
I saw this big 16" wide bag the previous Paris trip but resisted.Naturally I was thinking about it for months...
I had to pick it up at PYLONES and it did carry home alot of treasures
It's made by www.LAMARELLE.net
Isn't it funny how you can obsess about THE ONE THING you didn't buy...
And the next trip's sole purpose is to get that ONE THING!?
Here are PYLONES hours...Open EVERY DAY!
YAY
Monday, July 23, 2007
While Paris has lots of grey skys and grey Baron Hausmann buildings and people wearing neutral-colored clothing..
Paris also has lots of glitz - really I mean shine, shiny things.
And I'm not just talking about all the high glossy tartes - the L'abricotage.
But tons and tons of silvery, reflective tableware that make French tabletops so delightful.
Here, the window of L'Argenterie at 19, rue de Turenne, 75004 in the Marais. 
Alexi Worth said in his book review for the New York Times on my favorite book,
Jonathan Miller's book, ON REFLECTION:
Reflective surfaces, from puddles to pewter to mirrored glass,
have always been catnip to artists.
What makes these images so especially puzzling and delicious?
I certainly can't keep away from shiny things.
And they're a real challenge to paint...
I've painted this lone original silvery teapot at the Petrossian Boutique over and over..
The Vaissellerie shop in Paris has lots of silver bargains...
I found a terrific silver-plated chocolatiere for a song!
Laduree's teapots are a delight and an ongoing challenge...
Last but not least a silver water flask for the watercolor artist..
Surely something you can not do without!
For more silver, visit the Musée de l'Argenterie 109-113,avenue Daumesnil
From the French book of silver marks, Poincons d'Or et de Platine :
"Silverware will always be the most beautiful ornament of the table"
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