Sunny days are still few and far between – just enough now and then to go out and dance in the street and draw on the sidewalk. (Original art courtesy of two boys next door – one, age 8, the other his uncle, age 50).
Meanwhile, wanting to make the best of rainy days indoors, I try to read at least a few paragraphs in French each week. That enduring though not terribly fruitful endeavour brought me back to La maison d’être, that convenient mnemonic device illustrating a particularity of French verb conjugation.
Randomly, I decided to illustrate the verb "arriver." Yes, it can mean in English what it seems to suggest:-- "To arrive." But it can also mean, in various forms, "to happen" – and that's what I seized on when I decided to model my painting on a promo postcard from The Dance Centre.
I started with a line layout and found I needed to make a few adjustments in size and position.
At this very early stage, I planned to work seriously on a studied use of warm and cool colours, depending on the direction of light.
As I worked along, thinking about the Dance Centre morphing into a party house, an interesting memory surfaced – of a French movie (subtitled!) I'd seen decades ago: "Le Grand Meaulnes" based on what's considered a 20th century classic by the author Alain-Fournier. When I double-checked on-line, I remembered that I have this very book!
It's in a small pile of Books I Wish I Could Easily Read in French. Now oddly enough, what I most remembered about the film was what I thought (mistakenly) to be its opening sequence – a crazy-mad party scene at a mysterious chateau.
Perhaps it was this memory that led me to throw all caution to the wind – forget about my "assignment" to carefully analyze warm and cool colours and the effect of light – and just……….let 'er rip!
Here's the final version of "Arriver – Making It Happen" House of être Series, copyright 2023.
If I'd recalled "Le Grand Meaulnes" at the outset, I might instead have invited its party house cast to be my models:
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