Vide Grenier Collage and Watercolor

Vide Grenier is the name for the Sunday Flea markets in the French countryside. The literal translation into to English is vacuum out the attic or empty out your attic. Empty out your attic sounds better to me, because if you vacuumed up all your wonderful old stuff in your attic, you wouldn't have anything to sell at the flea markets. The location of these flea markets moves to a different village every Sunday. I was lucky enough to have Terry Ellesworth, Antique Dealer and Flea Market Expert Shopper, along on my last workshop in Durfort as well as Kathy Harmon-Lubar, expert photographer and collager. Terrie directed my eye to precious flea market items I would have overlooked, like old dusty French books, piles of old linens and a multitude of other items. Kathy Harmon-Lubar is an expert with collage. She educated me on how to shop for old postcards. I must have passed her old postcard buying course with an A because I just dropped my French postcards on my studio floor and had to pick up 23 cards. Anyway, here is a very simple collage mixed with watercolor that I did in the studio the day after shopping at the Flea markets. I hope to do more, it is a lot of fun to mix flea market treasures and watercolor.

Why Paint Outside on a Sunny Day?

Do you ever go outside and paint? You might want to try it sometime. Why? You can see real shadows, study them and then when you are painting inside from a mediocre photo without shadows, you will remember how to paint the shadows you observed outside.

I have seen really experienced teachers, like Fred Eckman, paint wonderful shadows from memory. I think if you observe enough real shadows, then they stick in the back of your memory and you can re-create them in your indoor paintings.

I painted this picture on the brightest sunny day we had during our workshop in France. It is the door of an old mill now turned into a wonderfully affordable bed and breakfast. If you squint at my painting you can see where I wrote the name of the B & B in my attempt at French schoolgirl cursive writing. "Moulin du Chapitre".