L’été est mort, Vive l’été !
Why do summers have to be so hectic when you’re over 35?
Let’s have a glass of wine to reflect on this shall we? Oh and raise it to our one-hundredth-facebook-fan! 
more summer sketches & paintings to come…
SketchPowder Art & Musings from South West France 
Sauveterre exhibition
5 paintings are on show at the annual exhibition held in the mairie. For the next two weeks they’ll be shown alongside 200 works by other fellow artists. Exciting stuff!!
Details for each piece are as follows:
The falling man – 100cmx80cm – 1200 euros
The Kitchen – 80cmx60cm – 750 euros
210 explosions – 80cmx60cm – 550 euros
Harriet & Ian – 46cmx38cm – 450 euros
On the phone – 39cmx31cm – “cadre américain” – 450 euros
A very civilized vernissage was conducted outside by the organiser Mr Dupuy, with kir and petits fours…
Couleurs d’Aquitaine – Sauveterre de Béarn
Another sunday, another painting competition, and YES, another prize!
This time the following painting of Sauveterre de Béarn is through to the Couleurs d’Aquitaine regional final next October in Montflanquin.
Good luck, little painting! Bonne chance !
2 still lifes
Verre d’eau et sa coupelle (20cmx20cm) – Oil on Canvas – For Sale
Bouteille de vin et son verre à demi rempli (2×20cmx20cm) – Oil on Canvas – For Sale
4 heures à Navarrenx
4 heures à Navarrenx (40cmx50cm) – Oil on Canvas – Sold
I spent Sunday doing another art competition, this time in Navarrenx, with the association “Couleurs d’Aquitaine”. We got there at 12 and by four pm the entries had to be submitted.
My painting won the “prix spécial du jury”, and Esmée’s drawing of ‘La Maison aux Volets Bleus’ won 1st prize in the 4 to 6 year-old category. As a result she will be invited to take part in the regional finals for the whole of Aquitaine in October
210 explosions
210 explosions (80cmx60cm) – Oil on Canvas – Sold
Based on a sketch of Ben, lying in gardens of Laas on a sunny day.
He was fast asleep, so didn’t notice the explosions around him
Ghost Town Crooners – Song for my lost love
Singing, lyrics and melody: Rebecca Garnett
Arrangement + all the instruments: Erwan Bézie
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‘Vive La France?’ in Saatchi Showdown Number Six
Hey there, Fellow Sketchpowder friends!
Erwan’s painting of the Falling Man has been entered for this weeks Saatchi Showdown.
Come and show your support for the painting by clicking on the link below and casting your vote.
If you fancy it, please send the link to anyone in your entourage whom you think might appreciate it.
Many thanks xx
UPDATE : THE RESULTS ARE IN AND…
The piece made it to number 36 out of the “50 most frequently selected works added to favourites” (scroll down to select Saatchi’s Showdown Number Six)
~WOOT~ THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTES AND SUPPORT!!
The Kitchen (2)
The kitchen (60cmx80cm) – For Sale
Below is the pencil version. Spot the differences!
Vive la France ?
Vive la France ? (80cmx100cm) – For Sale
Also known as ‘The Falling Man’
Fluidity, form, falling, movement, a bit of red, white and blue – A France that hangs propelled in self-struggle between the traditional and the contemporary, between optimism and grind – are we falling or flying?
——
Vive la France?
Aussi appelé L’Homme Tombant.
La fluidité, la forme, la chute, le mouvement, un peu de rouge, blanc et bleu – Une France prise dans la rage intestine entre le traditionnel et le contemporain, entre l’optimisme et la lutte – Sommes-nous en chute libre ou en vol?
Lovers in Brussels
Lovers in Brussels (80cmx60cm) – For Sale
Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be the shelter for each other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be the warmth for the other.
Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before.
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Dried Rose
Dried Rose (30cmx30cm) – Sold
When the Rose is Faded by Walter de la Mare
When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on
Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.
That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath,
No bond of life hath then,
Nor grief of death.
‘Tis the immortal thought
Whose passion still
Makes the changing
The unchangeable.
Oh, thus thy beauty,
Loveliest on earth to me,
Dark with no sorrow, shines
And burns, with thee.
‘Hallelujah’ – Ghost Town Crooners
I think its impossible to beat Jeff Buckley’s version of this song, where his singing genius met with the lyrical genius of Leonard Cohen. But as it is a song which has moved me so many times , I really wanted to have a go at doing a cover.
I am certainly not alone in this – records estimate that at least 200 different recording artists have done their own version, from the emotionally raw that runs fingernails down your spine to gospel fuelled X-Factor winning renditions that gets the whole audience swinging along to the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.
Perhaps we all find ourselves in the ‘baffeled king’ or the person that ‘cut’ their partners hair as Delilah did to Samson – the humility of the song resonates to many among us.
Scruffy the cat
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Jean Cocteau
Ivan, Tanya & Rebecca
One Saturday night in London when we had come back from Shunt Vaults…. A dark, mysterious place that transposes place and time into a heady cocktail of 60’s Cuba, dank Victorian underpasses that hint at the Vampiric, and the eroticism of the 30’s Orient – hidden behind a little door between London Bridge Underground and the turnstiles to Joiner Street, in the blink of an eye the weary commuter faces and Starbucks coffees are left behind and one is left to wander through art, live music and theatre – a place to escape and fantasise…..
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