An afternoon spent Art-ing, musing and playing

I spent a very delicious afternoon with my muse, creating, playing with paint, colour, collage papers and poetry.  This particular picture has been in my head for a while now - creating a visual that symbolises our time in France.  I had collected a few bits of papers from my trip to the brocante where I bought old newspapers and university journals from 1918 & 1937, plus stamps of letters sent home. Not wanting to ruin them by cutting/tearing them up (they're also a great source of reference), I colour copied the pages I wanted.  You can see within the piece Journal 'L'Universitie des Annales, plus I found a beautiful little piece of music entitled "Les Trois Princesses" so I thought this would have to be Me, Lucy and Muriel (muriel's my car, a C3 pluriel) and I then added, et Le Prince (that being Will).  It's not finished by any means, but I'm really loving it.  It evokes France for me.  As I photocopied the pages from my french map to help with the journey from Champagne--le-Sec to Calais, I used these pages to collage into it, showing the journey taken by the main towns along the route.   So I'll update when this is finished.

So Will has created a raised bed on the allotment which he's called The Salad Bowl and I wanted to make a sign for it.  It's a great collection of different lettuces, raddish, purple carrots, spring onions and here's the finished sign.  I had an off-cut of mdf which suited it perfectly.  Having no real brief I just  messed with colour and this is what happened.  What I loved about doing this, (I started by doing this one first) was it got me and my muse playing, almost like playing scales on a piano to warm up, or stretching before exercising.  Nothing to prove, just colour and fun.  Will loves it to say the least.

I think I have shown my 'deesse francais' here before but I added another layer yesterday by popping the yes and adding the words.  She needs something extra, not sure what right now, so letting her 'be' and it will come to me over the next couple of weeks.  

Below is a painting I have let 'rest' for a good few months, was not really sure where it was going, but yesterday, picked her up again and added colour, embellishments with stars.  I like the way it's coming along now and will add further layers over the next few weeks.  The one on the left is how she began.  

I'm so enjoying the musing, it is helped so much by having turned our second bedroom into my art studio/office work space.  It's multi tasking space and albeit a small area, I'm so grateful to have this allocated room.  I can go in there and shut the door (which I'm sure I'll be doing when the world cup starts - not all the time, I do like a game of footie, but not all the time!).  Will said to me yesterday "can you imagine if you had your own studio space, all just for this, wooden floors, massive windows overlooking the sea?"    
Ah, sounds wonderful -  I know it's not out of my reach.  I just have to make it happen. Happy BH Monday x~x~x