I couldn't resist my affection for Les Amis du Four, so I decided to start with a drawing of the Four de Renges for this year's exposition at the Galerie du Pressoir. I've done this drawing once before, but it was a small format (A4), . This drawing will be 70 cm by 50 cm with 3 cm margins on a sheet of 300 gsm 56 cm x 76 cm fine grain cold pressed Aches watercolor paper.This format will allow me to give the drawing more atmosphere and detail.

I will have the sketch done for Tuesday. Once I have a nice sunny day I will take a picture of the sketch and post it here.

Take a moment to listen to this radio show about Vincent Van Gogh and his personal letters.

My project 2009 will be a selection of castles found in the French speaking areas of Switzerland known as the Suisse Romande. Romandy (French: Romandie, la Suisse romande, German: Romandie, Welschland, Welschschweiz or Westschweiz, Italian: Svizzera romanda) is the French-speaking part of Switzerland. It covers the area of the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, and Jura as well as the French-speaking parts of the cantons of Berne, Valais, and Fribourg. About 1.5 million people (or 20% of the Swiss population) live in Romandy.

There are hundreds of castles in this region. I will be choosing between 20 and 30 subjects for the project. A French castle is a "Château-Fort", for in French a simple château connotes a grand country house at the heart of an estate, with non-military, purely residential function. I will be choosing subjects that are categorized as "Château-Fort". 

The focus on the "Château-Fort" is to represent the country of Switzerland and it's people as I have come to know them since my arrival in 1990. Although a castle is considered a defensive structure it has also evolved through time.  A castle was not only a bastion and place for detention of prisoners but also a social place where a knight or lord could entertain his peers. Over time the aesthetics of the design increased in importance, as the appearance and size began to reflect the prestige and power of the occupant. Castles were built as defensive measures and offensive weapons, but often over time comfortable homes evolved within the fortified walls.The drawings will show this evolution and how it may or may not relate to the development and evolution of the Swiss

As an "avant-goût" I currently have one Swiss Romandy castle in my private collection, "Chateau de Chillion". I will be rendering another version for this project. Over the next few weeks I will be developing the manifest for this project.

I’ve been thinking about this project the past few days. I spent some time walking through the town of Ecublens taking some pictures and trying to imagine what I would like to draw. After some consideration I decided to go with a drawing depicting Ecublens as it was on the 12th of May 1800. The day that Napoleon reviewed two divisions of his troops before the famous crossing of the Alps to the Battle of Marengo.

I have quite a bit of research to do to get this to be somewhat credible. I will be checking the archives over the next few days. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

For the moment I have just done a very loose sketch of what I would like to depict. Click the text to see the Esplanade Bonaparte from Google Maps.