The Beauty of Monet's Paintings

Two weeks ago we went with friends, Sue & Bert Collins, to see the Monet Exhibit and the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, a remarkably beautiful building dating back to the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition. You can learn more about it and see both a photograph of the building and a painting of it by Edwin Deakin HERE . But I couldn't resist taking this photo looking back at the Golden Gate Bridge from the grounds. It prepares you for the beauty of the landscapes to come.


The exhibit focused on Monet's early works, starting from his first exhibited painting, when he was 18, and ending with his paintings in 1862, when he was only 32 years old. I have loved prints of Monet, exhibits of the Impressionists that featured his work, including his later works of the waterlilies and moon bridge in his garden, calendar pictures that I've shared with my after school art class. But it took my breath away to see how accomplished Monet was at the young age of 32 — how many masterpieces he had created. Have a look at a few of the photos I was permitted to take in the museum.

                     There are more,  but I'll stop here. For those who like the work of Monet and are interested in his life,  Stephanie Cowell wrote a wonderful historical novel about his life, Claude & Camille. (Camille was the love of his life, the mother of his children, and his muse for so many of his paintings.) 

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You can order this through Amazon (as well as many other sites.) 

Stephanie also has a nice page about this book on her enjoyable blog:   

Do you enjoy art? The impressionists? Novels about famous artists? Share a favorite book about art or artists.

And have a great day. 

New Book Review -- Rodin's Lover

It's celebration time again--time for the Celebrate the Small Things blog hop, co-hosted by Lexa Cain at: Lexa Cain,  L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge , and Tonja Drecker @ Tidbits Blog. (You can go to any of these sites to add your name to the links, if you want to participate. I recommend it, because it's always fun to see positive news that others are celebrating, and to share your own as well. )

Today I'm celebrating the discovery of another fabulous read, a novel about Rodin, the French sculptor, and his tempestuous relationship with Camille Claude, his muse and the love of his life.

Rodin's Lover is set in Belle Epoque Paris -- the Paris of the French Impressionist painters. The author, Heather Webb, captures the era beautifully: cobblestone streets, cafés, ateliers (artists' studios), gaslit street lamps and the new electrical lights, church spires, horse-drawn carriages, the elite art critiques who held artists' destinies in their hands. To that mix, Webb brings the texture and reality of sculpting in clay, chiseling and polishing marble, and the thrill of the artist coaxing life out of stone and mud and creating something to last beyond his or her own life. 

The story itself is heart-breaking. The author thoroughly researched the lives of Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel. Camille began studying with the famous sculptor in her late teens, but it soon became evident her genius was on a par with his own. As their relationship evolved, and August trusted her artistic judgement, they became peers critiquing each other's work. Powerfully attracted to each other, it was inevitable that they would become lovers.

In French society, young girls were expected to get married, not have careers. Camille's mother wanted nothing better than to find a suitable suitor for her (though she was a cold and critical mother in every other respect). Camille was strong-willed and independent, determined to become famous and not let herself be broken. She was also suspicious and obsessive. Auguste still lived (unmarried) with the mother of his son and didn't feel he could abandon her. He, too, was strong-willed and obsessive. They were the perfect mix for an affair filled with passion and despair, and the author makes you ache for these two star-crossed artists from the first page until the last.

You can find out more about the book and the author HERE. She's a historical fiction writer and has written another book I would like to get -- Becoming Josephine. 

BTW: Please go next door to my Fourth Wish blog  to read my review of Mark Noce's debut historical novel that will be published next week -- Between Two Fires It's both historical romance and a mystery set in Celtic Britain in the year AD 597. A really gripping read.

And next week I'll be back to report on four more stories from Beyond Watson, so please come back then.

Meanwhile, do you have a favorite period of history you like to read about? Are you a fan of historical fiction? Or are mysteries more your cup of tea? And what are you celebrating this week? Please share.

Celebrating Art Again

Today I'm celebrating my after school Art Club again. But first, kudos to Lexa Cain @ Lexa Cain , L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge , and Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog, who co-host this "Celebrate the Small Things blog hop. You can go to any of these sites to get all the links and add your name to the links. 

About the Art Club: This year I have students from age 6 to age 14, and we meet each Thursday for an hour an a half. The first fifteen to twenty minutes are the lesson, which includes a little information about the artists we study, painting and drawing styles and terms, and use of the materials we are handling. 

Every Thursday I leave the house and drive to the community center, somewhat torn about the long afternoon  (thirty-minutes set-up, an hour clean-up, an hour and a half lesson and application.) Every evening I drive back home, thoroughly renewed, restored, and so happy I teach this class. The kids are so responsive and give art their best. Their energy revitalizes me (a great change from being hunched over my computer). And these are some of the sweetest kids you will ever meet. 

Yesterday's lesson, in honor of Black History Month and Dr. King was focused on the art of William H. Johnson, a twentieth-century African-American artist who studied in Paris and was influenced by modernism. Also a few other artists African-American artists of his era. Here are a few more samples of what they did yesterday:

These were done with oil pastels and colored pencils on pastel paper. Next week we will be using bamboo brushes and watercolors to celebrate Asian New Year.

And next month, we will have an art exhibit at University Art. The students keep portfolios and select what they consider their best work to show. If you are in the Sacramento Area, I hope you will come by. (I'll post more information later on Facebook.)

I hope you have enjoyed your visit, and I'll be visiting your blogs to join in your celebrations. Have a great day. And have a great week-end!

Has it been two weeks????

                                                     

Wow, time flies. This is kinda double celebrating, 2 weeks worth;  But first, hats off to the two co-hosts for this blog hop,  Lexa Cain @ Lexa Cain , L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge , and Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog  You can go to any of these sites to get all the links and add your name to the links. 

So, what am I celebrating:

1. I'm writing a new Imogene story for an anthology, and it's going well. Tons of research, as usual, but that's going well, too. And, as a matter of fact, I love research, especially historical research.

2. Art Club at the community center started 2 weeks ago -- well, three -- and I have such a wonderful class. The class is mainly for 8-to-12-year-olds, but I have two 7-year-olds and three 6-year-olds. Normally I don't take students that young, because the class is an hour and a half long. But these little sweeties are so focused, they are in like Flynn, as the saying goes.

Two weeks ago I attended Stories on Stage in Davis, (there's one in Sacramento, too). A writer friend of mine was there, and I took copies of his mystery to sign. And Catriona McPherson, one of my favorite authors, was there, and I won a copy of her latest book! I couldn't believe it, but there you are!

Have you ever won something that you didn't expect to win? Do you enjoy doing research?

Celebrating Helpful Friends and Student Work

Last week I signed up for Lexa Cain's blog hop: Celebrate the Small Things. I'm a great believer in noticing and being thankful for things that happen daily and weekly as well as the big events, so I like the idea of this blog hop very much.

This Week
1. I received so much helpful advice from online friends for technical questions I had (I'm not very "techie").

2. I met new friends in connection with my book that's coming out in June, Imogene and the Case of the Missing Pearls.

3. My art club students selected their art for our coming art show in March, and while I've been so pleased by the work of these students week-to-week, seeing their selections all together (a variety of lessons represented), I was dazzled all over again. They are ages 7 to 13, and I've posted some of their work on my Facebook from time to time.

What I love about this class is how committed they are to their work. Here are some

This was for El Dia de los Meurtos

samples: A few times I've forgotten to take my camera with me to the community center where the class is held. So not every lesson is represented here.

Baby Animals

Meawhile, the the link to Lexa Cain's blog hop is HERE, where you'll meet lots of other people celebrating meaningful things in their lives,





and the co-hosts of the blog hop:
L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge
Katie @ TheCyborgMom

More art work samples:

Native American Art

Sunset Silhouettes

         Hope you have enjoyed these! Please vist Alexa's site, and  please leave a comment here about what you are celebrating this week. 

Harlem Renaissance and the
work of Wm. H. Johnson

Book Review, Claude and Camille, A Novel of Monet

To read this gem of a novel is like entering an Impressionist painting and becoming immersed in its vibrant colors, glistening hilights, and hidden shadows. As a love story, it traces the arc of Claude Monet's life-long passion for Camille Doncieux, the woman who was his sweetheart, his muse, the mother of his two children, and, later, his wife.

The author, Stephanie Cowell

But Claude and Camille also captures the love of art that drives artists to pawn their few possessions for tubes of paint, borrow repeatedly from friends and relatives to stave off creditors, suffer repeated evictions from lodgings, stay outside all day in freezing temperatures in order to capture the play of light on waves or snow covered fields.

In his early painting days, Claude and his friend Fédéric Bazille share a studio in Paris that quickly becomes the hub of activity for several artist friends, among them, Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne, Degas. All the young painters are filled with visions of a new way of painting. The future seems promising, despite the fact that most of them are in debt. Almost all of them are artists against family wishes: Claude's father wants him to take over his nautical supplies shop in Le Havre. Bazille's family wants him to become a doctor.

Claude first sees Camille in a train station in Paris. Arrested by her  beauty, he makes a quick sketch of her before she vanishes. Then he comes across her by accident in her uncle's bookshop four years later. It seems destiny. Accepting his invitation to pose for a painting, Camille brings her sister to Fontainebleau as a chaperone. Later, in Paris, Camille poses again for Claude, and the portrait is accepted by the Salon in the Palais de l'Industrie. When he takes her to see the exhibit, convent-educated Camille decides she's in love with him and leaves her family and her fiancé to become Claude's lover and the darling of his circle of friends.

But Camille—Minou to friends and family—is a bundle of mysteries and contradictions: She wants to go on stage. She wants to write a novel. She wants to have lots of children. She has moods. A devoted muse and passionate lover, Camille's life centers around Claude. Or does it? Her own mother whispers to Claude in one scene, "There are things you don't yet understand about our Minou . . ."

This book was so good, I read it twice. The author's rendering of the Impressionists' world reflects her thorough research. Characters and settings come alive. The lives that unfold are entirely believable. This is a must read for history lovers, art lovers and anyone who just likes a good story.

You can order this book at:
Random House
Barnes & Noble
Amazon

For more information about Stephanie Cowell and her other books,
visit the author's website:

You can also contact her at:
https://www.facebook.com/stephanie.cowell.14
stephaniecowell@nyc.rr.com



How about you? Do you have a favorite novel you've read more than once? Do you like fiction based on famous figures in history? (Share titles, please!)