High Contrast Grey.

Oil on cardboard. I have been loving this pairing since the cardboard soaks up the first few layers of oil paint I can lay down some nice intial rough layers without having to wait forever for it to dry before continuing on. I haven’t painted anything focusing on the figure for years and after reading a quote by Toulouse, which seemed like a copy of something said by Courbet, I thought that while in France I could paint things that I have seen instead of imagining places comprised of things that I have seen, but don’t actually exist. This painting is of a photo I took during the Balkan music at the bar night, but the photo didn’t turn out due to the low lighting.

Saturday market in Rennes. I head to the market late and come across this lady grinding her organ and singing Padam Padam. I have to say that I love the French clichés.

After going to the antiques market on the outside of the covered market of Les Halles every Thursday for weeks I have finally found my first treasure within my price range. A silver teacup and saucer for only 5 euros. When I asked price I was so surprised than I asked the price back to the vendor and then showed 5 euros to make sure I wasn’t confusing numbers. I have tried looking up what the stamps mean, but it still feels convoluted. I just need to find a book on such things. Feeling all proud of my find I summoned the courage to ask the antique postcard dealer if he had any postcards of naked ladies from the ‘fin de siècle,’ he said no, asked if I meant men, I answered no, I mean ladies, and he said no again, but… I didn’t get the creepy stink eye to the degree I was expecting to get.

Another slightly overcast day with hints of sun breaking through for only short moments, I decided to return to the café with the soup and tartines. I wanted the same table with the chessboard painted on it, but my banker was having her lunch there. Again. Must be her regular spot. Instead I take the table right next the them. It wobbles. I try moving it, turning it. It wobbles. I need to finish a book for my French lit class by the end of the week, thankfully it seems to not be a terribly long book. The pages go by quickly (twice as fast as expected since the left pages are all in ancient French). Clichés abound, but it is the first example of written French. Clichés have to come from somewhere. Last time I visited this place I noticed something called Versinthe, which explained that it was made out of the same plants as absinthe. I order it to drink as I continue reading my book. Putting marks of toxic colors over things that might be of importance. The Versinthe is...

With the accordion festival in town the one show I wanted to catch was the burlesque show, but as I stand in line to get my ticket I soon find that it isn’t the line for tickets but the line for people with tickets and that the show had already sold out. I tried to not let this completely kill my evening and I went for a walk in search of something else to do. I still don’t quite know this town nor anyone that I could just call up to hit the town with. So my walk led me in circles though the maze of streets that makes up centre ville. I don’t think there is a street in centre ville I have yet to walk multiple times. While going on my walk I came across this sight of a man sitting at one of the outside tables at the bar. He was looking down, not moving, while next to him on the table there sat a glass of red wine that looked untouched. Picturesque with a hint of assumed existentialism.

While at the Saturday market I was handed a flier by some man who weaved through a few people to give it to me. Profiled as artist. It was for a two day exhibition of art and music. An artist collective community of warehouses decorated in art. Buildings falling apart and being rebuilt with art. Of course being France the outdor tent is hosting a Balkan band as people sat on furniture that was probably welded on site. A crust punk girl makes some cotton candy for kids. Money seems to be more of an abstract. I would love to figure out more about this place and how they function. I am pretty sure these are the people who removed the Ronald McDonald statue and replaced it with something black and beautiful.

Saturday market and a punk rocker playing an accordion. Not having good change I ended up getting over charged 10 euros. Another one of those times where I wish that I didn’t feel like language was a barrier, since I couldn’t think of how to bring up that I wasn’t given my change.. On a good note I did get some fresh figs which I have been cutting up and putting in with my yogurt.

I tried my best to make a tasty meal from scraps of food I have about. This was noodles, with French grocery store cheese with herbs (like Boursin), mayonaise, Dijon mustard, and a few chopped up green olives. It turned out alright, but I think I added too much of the mayonaise and the mustard, when I should have just used a small ‘dab.’ Of course to continue in the French style of the meal I paired it with a bagette and some pastis. Not bad at all.

I have finally finished painting in all the books in the bookcase. A slow process, probably made even slower by me wanting to mix a new color for almost every book, instead of making random books the same color. I never left the apartment Friday.. It is insteresting seeing how long I can hold back and develop a piece now just with the watercolor and not having to add in the ink just to make it feel complete. I wish I could remember the name of the bookstore from my dream. My painting professor asked me a question the other day, which was something along the lines of, ‘why are you so attracted to painting these things in a beautiful nostalgic timeperiod?’ It took me a while to translate and figure out what he was asking, but once I understood I didn’t have an answer in any language. Instead I thought about Midnight in Paris and the similar question it poses. The past is never as beautiful as we want to imagine it being.

A nightly text with a vague descritption of perhaps something musical happening leads to a bar. A small bar. One of those places that is poorly lit and feels more the size of a livingroom than a bar. Standing on a piece of what could be called the stage pressed up against a wooden support beam I try to take up as little room as possible as the band begins to open up all the instrument cases. An accordion, a concertina, a silver tuba, two things that look like tubas but a bit smaller, a saxophone, something that seems like a saxophone but is long and skinny and black and sounds deeper, something that sounds like a saxophone but looks more like a clarinet, three clarinets, an old tarnished trumpet, a sideways trumpet, a piccolo, a banjo, a big drum on the floor, a snare drum on the floor, a bass made from a big plastic bucket on the floor and a pole with a string on it, and perhaps a few more instruments. The band is densely packed together. They take up about a third of the...

Today it was finally nice and rainy out. Since all I had was one class this evening my plan became to spend the day studying and doing a few errands (like hitting up the thursday antique market, which is yet again too rich for my blood). But of course studying for me means finding a nice restauant or café to sit and do my homework at while enjoying the setting. For lunch I went by this restaurant/café/bar that I have seen sightly off the main drag of Sainte-Anne that always seems to have an interesting crowd of people and books on a wall that has been converted to a bookcase. Not exactly Bauhaus in Seattle, but perhaps something close and much much smaller. This French thing of loving courses is so nice. I start with fish soup and spiced tea since it has been a cold(ish) rainy day followed by some vegie tartines, or more directly translated as; potatoes and zucchini on artisan toast with melted cheese. Delicious. I think my banker sat down at the table next to me with so...

Watching the sunrise from my apartment window. It is so much easier to watch when the clouds calm down the light. Hints of blue though shades of grey and purple. I don’t know why I woke up so early this morning. Lying in bed only to reach that point where time slows down, but sleep is not achieved. I like the fact that I am up on the 4th floor (French)/5th floor (American), except the days that I have walked too much and then still have to climb all those flights of stairs just to rest in my room. A breakfast of french yogurt and jam on what I assume to be biscuits. I still need a dull knife for spreading the jam. The foldable girlscout knife with the bottle opener slices the jam more than it spreads. I found a pretty one at the thursday antiques market, but the man was charging 15 euros for it. I should really learn the stamps here because I couldn’t confirm or deny when he said it was silver.

After the shitty day of giving presentations in my broken French I decided that I should make something for myself that I have been craving. Fajitas. Well, like my broken French, these are more so my broken attempt at fajitas, but it was because I am missing a lot of necessary things to make them correctly, like a frying pan. I keep holding out that I might find a nice cast iron frying pan at the market, but that has yet to happen. There also isn’t going to be a ‘braderie’ market here for a couple of more weeks, which makes me a bit frustrated, but that is just how life is. I still think about that beautiful 30 euro oil lamp I didn’t get at the last market. I’m pretty sure it has appeared in some of my bizarre French dreams since.. Also it pops into my head whenever I am working on something in the evening and can’t use my lamp because the bulb is dead and the only available outlet is next to my sink. To sit at my desk in France and paint by oil lamp light… yeah, I probably s...

I gave two presentations in French today for my art classes.. I think I misunderstood the assignment for architecture. I think it had something to do with the comparison of inerior and exterior, but I presented that I wanted to design my own Kowloon walled city that utilized more green architecture methods. At least I hope that is what I was saying.. I hate seeming like such an idiot just because my language skills hinder me from expressing my intentions or understanding the questions correctly that are presented to me. And then my language class to help me with such things is asking me to conjugate the passé composé and the plus-que-parfait with sprinkling in some pronouns.. Not quite the help I was hoping for.

Since we visited a town litterally on the edge of the ocean we only found it fitting to end this excursion with some sea food. I have been enjoying the ability to buy dinners are three course meals for not that much money. This was my first course. Shrimp. I have never been served shrimp with even the head still attached, but the French are as the French do. Personally I do like the fact that more often than not I can see a dead animal for what it is and not a guise of something ground up and red. Second course was mussels and steak fries. Delicious and almost too much. I never did find the bottom of the bowl of mussels. Then third course we took to go as our train was going to be leaving soon and we still had to catch a bus to the tran station and buy the train tickets. With many of us not having functioning credit cards and not having a way to pay for the ticket in cash, we were in quite the dilema, but all was solved and I ate the third course on the train as the night...

A café that has replaced its barstools with swings hanging from the ceiling. Doll parts littered every aspect of this café, which seemed to be more of a bar when looking at the menu. Still had a nice children’s section though, as they were the bigger draw for the swings. Music from what sounded like the 30s played over the speaker system. Perfectly paired by the accordions hanging from the ceiling and on the wall. I took my leave of trying to fight the heat of the sun and got a tea, pulled out my watercolor painting, and began to sketch in books. The girl working the bar sported a flatcap and as she stood behind the bar with nothing to do she seemed to work on a crossword puzzle in the newspaper. An air of ennui that disappeared as she took orders for drinks. If this was an option to wander to everyday and work on my art I think I would quickly become one of the fixtures on the wall. If I ever owned a café…

A day trip to the beach. This sunny weather seems to have no end. We arrived at the hight of high tide, but as the water went out if unburried many things that we could only see hints of at the beginning. Like this pool, when we first saw it it was only some random stairs in the middle of the water. Then the water receeded and people arrived and it became a pool that retained the sea water.

I get some asian takeout and find a park to rest in shade for lunch and read some of the many numerous things I have for my litterature class. Soft grass and a wall that looks like it should be a castle. Perhaps it once was? Chopsticks in French are called baguettes. But in a haste I also asked for a fork just incase I was wrong and ended up with asian takeout and nothing to eat it with.

Pharmacy across from the women’s prison. I wandered the area around the metro stop Jacques Cartier to try and find the thrift store near by. I arrived early, when they were still closed for the two hour french lunch time, and was hoping to find some other treasures in the area. But only found the women’s prison and residential houses. Too much sunlight. I think I might have developed some mild heatstroke, which made my sickness that was just about gone to come back and take a new foothold. I kind of miss the overcast days already..

The streets at sunset. I was looking for a café or bar to just sit and paint in the evening. Taking in the French culture, while working on my art. Looking for inspiration. An inspiration more tangible than the constant here. I tried my little crazy Breton bar, but it was closed for reasons not explained or understood. So I wandered like one of the many homeless dogs around here. I find a bar and I sit outside. Under a bright light that distorts all reality of the night but provides excelent light for painting. The drink ‘whiskey ginger’ doesn’t traslate, but I was led to believe it does until I received an 8 euro whiskey with rocks on the side. Good, but no ginger to accompany. It gets later and the bar switches from jazz to dance club music. I leave and run into americans searching for a French sandwich called a Scooby Doo. Something so greasy that only drunks can truely appreciate it.

While going on a trip to the hardware store and attempting to figure out how to walk there I deviated from my home drawn map when I came across a sidewalk surrounded by woods that seemed to be like a snake inbetween large residential buildings. This wooden path eventually led me to a simple but gorgeous park. This as well seems to be the park with the collection of rectangular upward standing stones. A modern take on prehistory architecture?