MY BIRTHDAY

 

I had a birthday last week and as part of the tradition to celebrate we went to our favourite restaurant at Trebeurden which is in a lovely hotel overlooking the bay.  We had a delicious meal and afterwards took a siesta by the beach.

here is a link to the hotel so you can see what an amazing place it is.

 

While Bob snoozed I got out my sketchbook and did a couple of sketches of the rocks and pine trees.  We've been coming to Trebeurden for 20 years now, first on our boat for our summer holidays and now that we live only 20 minutes drive away we can come as often as we want.

 

My darling sister Juliet gave me some fat squares of patchwork fabrics as a gift and I was inspired to use them as covers for a couple of Moleskine sketchbooks I've had for a while waiting to be decorated.

 

I chose the autumn leaf fabric for the landscape watercolour book and appliquéd the green trees  onto the sky for the portrait one.

 

For the inner pieces I chose another scrap of autumn leaves fabric for the first one and appliquéd the green trees on top of the silver birch trunks for the second.

 

Here you can see what a simple way this is to decorate an ordinary sketchbook.  They are just like a normal paper slip cover but stitched along the top and bottom to fit the book.  I transferred the elastic from the original to the inside of the cover for the closure.

 

This week it was time for a visit to 'Virtuelle Coiffure' for a haircut and once again I arranged it so that my friend Stephanie (la Boulangère) was there at the same time.  I sketched Sylvie's beautiful bouquet of arum lilies while I awaited my turn and then Stephanie as she had her roots coloured. 

 

After I had been coiffed I had a while to wait for Stephanie to be finished off so while we chatted and gossiped I had a chance to draw her Boulangerie, just across the road.  One day I'll have to stand in her doorway and draw the hairdresser's salon. We finished off the afternoon with some tea at Lionel's bar just along the road.

 I do so love living in a village like this where everyone knows everybody else and there's always someone to say 'bonjour' to and pass the time of day.