I continue to find painting cats on stools a most satisfying activity. Discovering a new old stool at Emmaüs, a brocante, vide maison, or eBay or Leboncoin is always magical. Repairing, sanding, and painting it gives me enormous pleasure.

Je continue à trouver que peindre des chats sur des tabourets est une activité des plus satisfaisantes. Découvrir un nouveau tabouret ancien chez Emmaüs, une brocante, vide maison, ou eBay ou Leboncoin est toujours magique. Le réparer, le poncer et le peindre me procure un énorme plaisir.

Mostly, I work from photos or, in the case of Minoushka à Cordes and my current project, Henri IV à Cordes, a painting. I’m using one of Cordes by Yves Breyer that I have on a postcard. Brayer’s work is perfect for using a a model because he gets so much character into simple strokes.

La plupart du temps, je travaille à partir de photos ou, dans le cas de Minoushka à Cordes et de mon projet actuel, Henri IV à Cordes, une peinture. J’utilise une des Cordes d’Yves Breyer que j’ai sur une carte postale. Le travail de Brayer est parfait pour utiliser un modèle car il donne tellement de caractère à des traits simples.

For Minoushka I didn’t have the exact photo I needed to work from so I combined a few. Here’s her face in a picture that Jon Davison, one of her humans, took:

Pour Minoushka, je n’avais pas la photo exacte dont j’avais besoin pour travailler, alors j’en ai combiné quelques-unes. Voici son visage sur une photo prise par Jon Davison, l’un de ses humains :

And here she is on her stool:

Et la voici sur son tabouret :

I’m just beginning the one of Henri IV, our extraordinary half-Siamese cat who met his match tragically last fall. He was two years old and King of all he could see; his nemesis was a car on our street, which he had recently claimed. My heart broke at losing him so young – I’m not sure I’ll be able to part with the stool when I finish it.

Je commence tout juste celle d’Henri IV, notre extraordinaire chat demi-siamois qui a tragiquement rencontré son match l’automne dernier. Il avait deux ans et était le roi de tout ce qu’il pouvait voir ; son ennemi juré était une voiture dans notre rue, qu’il avait récemment revendiquée. Mon cœur s’est brisé de le perdre si jeune – je ne suis pas sûr de pouvoir me séparer du tabouret quand je l’aurai fini.

Here’s Henri IV on his throne:

Voici Henri IV sur son trône :

I’m using this out-of-focus picture of him for the painting.

J’utilise cette image floue de lui pour la peinture.

J’ai un peu modifié la queue pour qu’elle fasse écho à la forme de notre rue sur la photo de Cordes. It’ll go on the in-process stool above.

Voici le croquis que j’ai fait cet après-midi. Il ira sur le tabouret en cours ci-dessus.Il ira sur le tabouret en cours ci-dessus.

It occurs to me now that this series, Cats on Stools, is in part one of the gifts of Henri’s death. The other is that my heart has settled back into my chest after being in my mouth for the months when Henri was claiming more and more territory in the village. He’d taken to walking around it with me and Mocha in the weeks before his boldness caught up with him. He was fearless.

Il me vient à l’esprit maintenant que cette série, Cats on Stools, est en partie l’un des cadeaux de la mort d’Henri. L’autre est que mon cœur s’est réinstallé dans ma poitrine après avoir été dans ma bouche pendant des mois où Henri revendiquait de plus en plus de territoire dans le village. Il avait pris l’habitude de s’y promener avec moi et Mocha dans les semaines avant que son audace ne le rattrape. Il était sans peur.

RIP Henri IV de Cordes.

Our house in Cordes has two windows, one up and one down. Well, that’s not exactly true. There’s also the front door, which has a panel of obscure glass, (just learned that kind of mottled glass is called “obscure”), two bathroom windows, also obscure glass, and a skylight, obscured mostly by dirt since cleaning requires climbing on the roof.

The point is, there are only two windows where you can see out.

For obvious reasons, I started taking pictures out of them the day we moved in. Sometimes I take more than one, sometimes I miss a few days or even weeks because we’re traveling, or it’s dark when I get up, or it’s raining and the view is less inviting.

I don’t keep every picture I take, either. (I probably should have done that, but it’s too late now.)

Most of the time I face directly south, looking out of the windows.

Cordes is shaped like a fish, and we are on its belly, letting us see both the sunrise and the sunset. Sometimes I lean out to catch the sun.

I like the fog that rises from the creek, l’Aurausse.

It’s green in the winter here, but we get hard frosts and once in a while a dusting of snow.

Occasionally it rains enough for the valley to flood.

The trees change color and lose their leaves in the fall.

Rainbows aren’t uncommon.

And the clouds are spectacular!

In the late spring hot air balloons start to come over Cordes.

Our cats appreciate the window sills as much as I do.

Sometimes you get incredible clouds and fog at the same time.

I took screenshots of all these pictures to post them here, so you can’t click on them individually to enlarge them. Too bad.

Maybe I’ll put them all upon Flickr so they’re more accessible.

Or maybe I won’t.

In any case, I’ll keep taking more of them.

Because the extraordinary beauty right out the window never stops amazing me.