Fondation Maeght

St.Paul de Vence is a picturesque 'village perché' between Nice & Cannes. On the outskirts of the village, hidden amongst woodland, lies the Fondation Maeght. It holds a collection of modern & contemporary art by artists such as Miro, Giacometti, Chagall & Braque. The Maeght family created the Fondation as a kind of refuge for these artists & hosted visitors like Duke Ellington, Simone Signoret, Ella Fitzgerald, Fernand Leger.

The gardens are interesting to explore.



I drew the weird sculpture dotted around the garden.


The gallery contains a great collection of art journal 'Derrier le Miroir'. Check out some of those cover artists - Miro, Bacon, Steinberg, Kandinsky . . .







Duke Ellington & Joan Miro.


Miro at work.

Chagall

I'm not too keen on Chagall but here in Nice there is the Musée Marc Chagall so I thought I'd give it a go. It's dedicated to a series of large scale works on a biblical theme & sure enough was all a bit too flowery for me! The building is also yawn-inducing & I ended up drawing in the garden-the most interesting feature. That's the end of me & Chagall. (I do like his auditorium ceiling for the Opera Garnier in Paris however). Bonne weekend!

Friends & countrymen

A selection of familiar faces & strangers caught in restaurants, cafés & the local brasserie.





Again, more 'passants' but drawn a bit looser & more exaggerated.




Next are some faces draw from French & Italian TV channels.

RIP Luciano Pavarotti

The big man has sadly passed to the great concert hall in the sky & I thought this would make a fitting tribute. Back in 2001 at Uli Meyer's studio I designed this character based on him for a title sequence for German TV. 3-D model built by CG whizz-kid Leo Sanchez .

Moleskine

Here are some more pages from my Moleskine sketchbook from March/April. I was re-reading the Walt Stanchfield notes at the time so I was trying to draw EVERYTHING I saw! But small & quickly-

These are from a trip to Paris back in March when the weather up north was still cold.



One weekend we drove across the border to the nearest Italian town-Ventimille-known for its leather market.


This is Cannes-trying to capture kids playing frisbee on the beach.


Cap d'Antibes- trying to amuse myself while sunbathing on the beach with Raja.



Fréjus/St.Raphael & St.Tropez

Death In The Afternoon

Last weekend, Neil & I drove out to explore the Camargues region, west of Marseilles. It was my introduction to the French 'corrida' so we hit the bull trail via the historic cities of Arles & Nimes. Our guide was Jeff Pledge-affcionado of 'taurine culture' & Ernest Hemingway lookalike.
Here's Jeff in action-




In Arles we ate lunch at the famous 'Night Café' that Van Gogh painted (opposite the 'Nord Pinus' hotel!). Arles & Nimes each have a colossal roman arena still used to stage corrida. Mighty impressive edifices. Late afternoon Jeff took us to see a 'course camarguaise' in Sommieres. The bulls are harangued by 'razateurs'- men dressed in white who nimbly try to retrieve ribbons tied around the bulls horns. That night we stayed in salty seaside 'resort'-Grau de roi & the next day headed over to Nimes via mediaval fortress town Aigues-Mortes which means 'dead water'.


Leaving Nimes across the flat marshlands we rolled into Istres. It's another small provincial town but this weekend it was buzzing with festivities to celebrate the corrida. It was staged in a large modern stadium & we saw three toreros confront 2 bulls each. The animals were magnificent but it's not easy to justify what amounts to torture & ritual slaughter. However the whole spectacle is intriguing & visually exciting. I'm not sure how relevant it is to society today & of course there is intense opposition to bull-fights still being staged. But for the populace of the region it's still valued as an entertaining afternoon for the whole family, from very young children to grand-parents. Maybe DVDs & football matches just don't do it for them?!


The stadium in Sommieres is perfect-just the right size with an oval ring & shaded by trees all the way around.

Jazz, fireworks & Edith Piaf

I'm off to visit bull-fighting country this weekend, here are some sights I've seen over the past month.


Last week we were at the Nice Jazz Festival-not so much jazz on offer but some great soul, funk & blues acts. We saw Isaac Hayes perform a great rendition of the 'Shaft theme'. Sly Stone was on his last legs but his 'Family' were superb & 'King' Solomon Burke is something else! I couldn't draw this guy fat enough-they literally wheeled him on stage behind a curtain & plonked him down on his golden throne!




Mougins village-gorgeous little hill village with an interesting photography museum containing André Villers' shots of Picasso.



The temporary exhibition displays Chiara Samugheo's pictures of the golden age of Cinécitta Studio. Check out Federico Fellini giving Sophia Loren the old Italian charm!

Tout le monde peut cuisiner!

Saw 'Ratatouille' last night in French! The voices are great & help make this 'postcard' version of Paris more authentic-even the on-screen graphics are in French;the hand-written letters, Gusteau's book etc. I assume these scenes were re-rendered for the 'version Francais'?

I still want to see the 'version original' to hear Peter O Toole as the critic.

The camera-work & the animation in the film were the stand-outs for me. As Andrew Stanton said in his Comic-Con speech-Pixar has animators who've been there for 15 years & just get better with each film. I thought this kind of long term nurturing of talent died with the Nine Old Men-they had 40 years to perfect their craft-but it seems Pixar have a similar commitment, let's hope they can keep improving for another 25 years!

I know Linguini's design was based on Lou Romano's appearance somewhat but don't you think Sempé's 'noses' could have been an inspiration too? Linguini could be the adult version of petit Nicolas.



Here 'Lifted' is called simply 'Extra Terrestre' & played well with the audience I was part of. It got big laughs from the younger kids & older adults. When the WALL-E trailer played & the little robot says his name it got a big response from the crowd with the kids copying the voice! Bodes well for next summer. . .

My trip to Cannes & wot i did lurn

This weekend I have been on a nice day by the seasisde in Cannes. I saw an art extibishun about a French skoolboy called Nicolas. This is wot i lurnt-

Monsiur Sempé's first name is Jean-Jacques and he draws VERY small. He called the boy Nicolas after he saw a wine shop with this name.

Monsiur Goscinny's first name is René and he wrote about the most famous peeple in France. He wrote about Nicolas as I have said already and a French viking called Asterix and even a French cowboy called Lucky Luke. He knew them all but is dead now.

It was a very nice museeum and very intresting. I was taking lots of piktures too.

A banner year. . .

This must be one of the most interesting years for animated feature releases in the history of the medium. We saw the Simpsons Movie last night- it's thankfully brief, after an hour of non-stop gags it becomes slightly wearisome-like a long episode of the TV show. However it's very funny & the feature format allows the film-makers to break many TV restrictions; nudity, mild swearing & even sex!

Musée d'histoire Naturelle, Nice

The Natural History Museum in Nice must be the smallest in the world-it's ONE room! These goofy looking creatures I've drawn are pretty much the only exhibits they have apart from lots of pickled fish in jars & some groovy shark jaws.

A Good Year

I've been in France for a year! I moved to Paris last June just as the French were starting to gain ground in the World Cup. It was a sweltering hot summer in the city but there was a great feeling in the streets & people would go crazy whenever a match was won. I was only there for 4 months before moving on South. I've put together some of the sketches of people I met or saw & some of the situations that I got myself into over the past year.



Car-burning seems to be a traditional French past-time! During the World Cup I ended up in the eye hospital after getting too close to the smoke of a burning vehicle & a fragment of something lodged itself on my retina! In February I had a bike accident on the Promenade & my shoulder hasn't been the same since. For some reason my doctor sent me to a Gynaecological clinic to get x-rayed!



Here's a photo collage of some sights I came across in Paris.



These pics are from the Cote d'Azur.


France really is a marvellous country & I've only seen a tiny part of it. I hope to stay as long as possible & discover more.