The lovely thing about living in France is when you return back after a holiday in the UK it’s like the opposite of the holiday blues. Most Brits go on holiday for a bit of extra sunshine, but it’s very freeing to not need to maximise my sunshine intake all the time. Sometimes it’s a sunny Saturday and we stay in a play board games which we all know is an actual crime in the UK.
I stayed in England over 3 weeks and it was lovely, but it was long enough to get a bit bored and be happy to return. Me and the boys flew back from Manchester to Carcassonne but before leaving Carcassonne I met a random woman and bought 5 big easels off her for my exhibition. (It was pre arranged because she lived there, I didn’t just see her walking the street with 5 easels and force her to sell them)
Carcassonne is a lovely place and we had a nice little wonder around before going back home. Dan had been on his own for 10 days and was very happy to see us all. And we were especially happy to be back because our friends the McMaster family were visiting. They found a last minute package deal to stay in a holiday camp 35 minutes away from us. So we did a lot of fun water based messing about with them at a water park and the lake inflatables. Jumping or falling in water is one of my top hobbies, especially with friends and family.
I also suggested we did sunrise painting and not everyone was as enthusiastic as me, but I think in the end we were all we glad we got up for it. Sunrise wasn’t until just after 7. But I got up at 5 am to get ready and arrive at the beach for 6 am to arrive when it was dark. If you’ve never watched a sunrise my top tips are all the best bits happen before the sunrise. The sun actually rising is like the finale of the show. You have to get there when it’s dark to truly appreciate the full change from night to day. First there’s the glowing bit which is like the support act. It’s not the best bit, but it tells you the show is about to start and gets you in the mood, and then all the best colours happen around 40 minutes before the scheduled sunrise. I was commentating on it and getting very excited the way some people would about sport.
I love when you see the florescent colours, I've got a book all about colours and it says florescent colours were only invented in the 70's but the sunrise is proof that people didn't invent florescent, it was always there. I was on a massive high, hyping up everyone about the colours and painting them. My reaction when pink came out was like the reaction of the crowd when the artist P!nk first stepped on stage to perform a big show. Unfortunately by 9am I was so tired and had no energy for the rest of the day. It was worth it though, and I loved how different everyone's paintings were.
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Zac and Dan share a romantic moment together on the platform you can swim to
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| all our paintings |
It was a lot of work getting ready for my exhibition, most of it I had done before I went to England including two oil paintings that needed time to dry, a big acrylic painting of the chateau venue and making loads of little post cards of different areas of my region the 66. I had 10 days between getting back from England and the exhibition and the first of those days were spent with our friends splishing around on inflatable slides. But we had a week set aside where Dan would be on childcare to allow me to do my last bits of prep which included, a small painting, printing lino designs onto canvas bags, making some more paper lino prints, pricing all the work and typing up the labels.
Dan had seen a job he wanted to apply for, it was a well paid remote marketing job similar to his last one but with more responsibility, so he sent his application off one morning, and then got a call that same day quite late like 8pm asking him to come for an interview. Then it got very busy because I had to squeeze all my work into a smaller time so that he could have time to prepare for the interview. The kids did not have a very exciting week that week, although I'm sure they were happy when we kept suggesting they watched a film or played computer games.
We also went to see a film that was projected on a big screen outdoors in our village. The posters said it would start "at nighfall" and when we went at 8:30 they told us to come back later. It didn't start till around 9:20pm and ended at 11pm, which is really late for a kids film. It was a nice cute thing to do though, it was free, and a kid in Eric's school even gave our boys a little pot of popcorn each. I don't normally love kids films but this was so funny! and it would have been even funnier if I had a better knowledge of French. If you get a change to see Marsupilami you should. We laughed a lot!
Dan's interview went well, he will hear back next week after they have interviewed more people, he's also got an interview for a job in Perpignan on 15th Sept and there's another job he's just applying for that is a bit more junior that what he was doing before so hopefully if he doesn't get either of the first two he could get this.
My exhibition was lovely in the end, the set up was a little stressful. It's a long a windy road to get there and I had to go by myself so that I could fit all the paintings and easels in the car. I wasn't allowed to put nails in the old walls but there were some random hooks and stuff poking out that I could use plus I had all my easels. It was bit windy though and a few times paintings fell down and I was worried about them being damaged. When it was all set up I went back home so that I could bring the family back in the evening.
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The road to the Chateau where I had my exhibition. (when you see the pink hotel turn right.) |
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Thankfully by the evening the wind had died down and the weather was perfect, people came from all around up to a hour away which I really appreciate. I sold 4 paintings and some smaller things. A few families with kids came which I loved. I really like kids to have the chance to see accessible art. Most young kids like to draw but they are sometimes given the message that famous artists are all dead and it's not really possible to be an artist now.
This whole thing came about because I made a video series called "attic to chateau" where I revealed a painting a day in my weird attic bedroom. I've seen other creators do things like this and sometimes their dreams come true, I'm unfortunately still living in a weird attic with no windows but somebody with a chateau got in touch and let me borrow it for an exhibition! Which is mad. If you want to see a 3 minute tour of the exhibition click here.
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| If you want to buy prints or bags of any painting click here |
My friend Flick is back in the region after two years in Paris, she's an abstract artist and just a very fun person to be friends with. It was really nice having her at the exhibition, and introducing her to a few other friends I've made since she left. At the end of the evening she took my boys back to hers for a sleepover which meant that me and Dan could pack up everything back into the car. I was exhausted when I got home, and then I realised we left a painting there! Very annoying as the whole reason for the sleepover was to save us doing 3 trips there in a weekend.
This week I have been trying to get back into English teaching again, in September I have to rearrange a time for everyone to have their lessons. I am not doing my bigger group this year, and unfortunately some online teaching work I was going to do isn't available any more so I really need to find more work but I am secretly hoping the art stuff will take off so I can just do that instead.
Next blog...hear all about the Vacecomy Dan had yesterday and I guess we'll find out of he gets any of those jobs.
