Blog

"Serenity" Oil on canvas, 9 x 12" Available

“I am sure all your readers can 'feel' how precious this year in France has been to you, through the paintings, but also through your prose. I know I was filled with a sense of stillness and calm and serenity as I read and as I gazed.”

A friend from Pennsylvania emailed me these words as I was packing to leave France. I was moved by her ability to express what I felt, and glad I had succeeded in conveying the calm and serenity I felt while painting the flax series.

A little background about the series:  Last summer I wanted to fulfill a dream of painting a lavender field in Provence. Due to climate change, that wasn’t possible - the lavender was harvested two weeks before my July artist residency in Provence began.  Fast forward to spring 2019 when I was living in Tours, further north in France.  (Tours is roughly about an hour west of Paris via the fast train.)

I had been working indoors most of the winter, and getting excited about the upcoming plein air season. I remembered the explosion of yellow canola that happened in the fields near Vouvray (across the river from Tours) in 2014 and was planning to return to paint more canola ("colza" in French). 

“Colza Morning"5 x 7" Available 

Taking a photo of the green fields with just a hint of blue. April, 2019

While on a bike ride with my sister at the end of April, we explored the fields near Vouvray looking for the yellow fields... Even though it should have been the peak of the canola season, we found only expanses of green. Was I too early or too late? Could it be a different crop? I noticed a few delicate blue flowers and took a photo of them, wondering if they were weeds.

A few weeks later I returned with my art supplies by bus #54 to Vouvray to solve the mystery of the missing canola, and hopefully to paint. This is a bus route that runs from Tours to Vernou through gorgeous countryside.

I was carefully watching the scenery out the bus window as we rode past the fields, trying to decide which stop to use. Suddenly to my amazement I saw fields of exquisite robin’s egg blue. I quickly pushed the red “stop” button and jumped off at the next stop.

"Calm" 12 x 9" Available

My heart was pounding as I hurried back along the road to the fields. I could see countless paintings as I came around the bend and discovered a patchwork of blue and lime green. The cloudy purple sky accentuated the richness of the colors.

Time stopped as I painted those fields for the rest of the day.

Later that evening, I was able to identify the crop as flax (“lin” in French) and I learned something very meaningful about flax: The seeds are used to make linseed oil, a key ingredient in artists’ oil paints, and the stems are made into "linen” canvas artists use! How special is this, I thought. I am painting a crop that feeds my passion and is vital to my art. 

I was “seeing” the flax in my mind day and night for the next two weeks as I returned on the #54 bus to paint there. Each "painting day" was filled with the solitude and serenity that only a blue field can provide.

“Dreaming in Blue" 8 x 16” Available

“Peaceful Morning" 6 x 8” Available

Eventually the flowers disappeared and red poppies took over, but that’s a story for a future blog post.

Flax fields are planted on a 6 or 7 year rotation to avoid disease, so I feel even more lucky to have stumbled upon these magical fields during a year I was living in France.