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January 2005

I’ve been drawing and painting, even if we never got the new stuff on the website. Here’s a sampling, including a few sketches that will appear in the book.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionThe famous falaises (cliffs) of Etretat, on the English Channel.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionI loved the war statues we saw all over France. This one is from Etretat.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionOn the north Atlantic island of Belle Ile, a tree gnarled by the wind.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionThe waterfront promenade at St. Jean de Luz, in southwest France.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionIn early spring, leafless plane trees look like Howard Hughes’ hands. These were in St. Jean de Luz.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionJazz accordionists caught on the fly in St. Sebastian, Spain.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionIn Cassis, we welcomed the season’s first topless bathers.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionBeth and I had a lovely dinner in this place in Nice’s old city.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionA view of our room at the Hotel Grimaldi in Nice. Note the weirdo in the mirror.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionThe Iles Sanguinaires, Corsica, painted under a blazing sun.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionIn Tangier, Morocco, Matisse found a world as exotic as his imagination.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionThe picturesque Collioure harbor painted from behind an agave plant.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionI loved this “Moorish Castle” behind the church in Collioure.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionThis was our side of Collioure, nestled between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionI painted these “cork oaks” on a hill above Collioure. Stripped of their bark, they look like James Brown’s backup singers.
Matisse_France_Travel_Creativity_Adventure_Expatriates_Dreams_ReinventionAfter seeing the Tour de France, I imagined a bike race through Collioure.
Our room in Honfleur, though the table was considerably more level than this.
Portrait of Beth, painted in Collioure.
We lived for a year in Collioure. Here’s My Studio Under the Eaves.
My 60th-birthday self portrait, imagining myself in Matisse’s famous picture at the Beau Rivage.

January 16

Here are some sketches I did during our time in Paris. It was gray, drizzly, and extremely cold most of the time we were there, so I spent most of my time drawing inside.
A sketch of our living room at 14, rue du Perche.
Watercolor rendering of the Perche living room.
View of the courtyard at 14, rue du Perche.
Oil painting of the Perche courtyard. An attempt to convey the grayness of Paris in winter.
Sacre Coeur at twilight.
Old man and dog at a cafe'. Acrylic painting from a black and white photograph by Iris Wolf.
Le Bon Marche--a large department store--a few days before Christmas. Caught, thankfully, from across the street at a quiet cafe'.

A favorite of Matisse's "goldfish" paintings at Centre Pompidou.
The door of Matisse's old apartment building at 19, quai St. Michel.
Self-portrait at our second apartment on Ste Croix de la Bretonnerie.

November 27, 2002

Mostly these will be pictures from the field, made in my notebook on the run, sometimes with scribbled lines next to them about color and texture and tone in case I want to do a later painting. The drawings and paintings below are—with the exception of one—from previous adventures Beth and I have taken together. –J.M.
My writing table back home at 501 Holly, where I started writing books…
Our room in Lourmarin, France, in 1997. I loved the shapes of the wrought iron…
This was the view from our balcony at Havana’s Hotel Santa Isabella in 1999…
Studying this vase of sunflowers outside my cousin’s Mississippi lake house, I decided Van Gogh was a realist…
Speaking of Van Gogh, here’s a quick sketch of the Arles café he made famous in The Café Terrace at Night…
A watercolor sketch of the Abbey de Senaque in Provence, with the lavender in full bloom…

This is a stylized view of Havana Bay, made from the ramparts of an old fort across from the Malecon…
The Hotel Torre di Cala Piccolo in Porto Santo Stefano, Italy, where we enjoyed long shadowy cocktail hours overlooking the Mediterranean…

Sitting on this terrace in Old Havana, we absorbed city sounds from salsa to opera to pop…

 


Copyright © 2005 James Morgan & Beth Arnold. All rights reserved

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