A Vineyard in Watercolour

Albrecht is busy working on a commission to design various wine labels for a traditional winemaker family. I think the enviable side of this work is having to visit their vineyards and I wonder if tasting the wines is a necessary part of his project!! He describes this particular vineyard as "orbiting an old castle of that family west of the Black Forest overlooking the wide Rhine valley with a fantastic view of the Cathedral of Strasbourg and the Vosges Mountains in France."

I've never been to this part of Europe so find it very interesting to view it through Albrecht's eyes. 

If this lovely, fresh delicate watercolour is a reflection of the area it seems to be well worth a visit. The composition and drawing on the card shows Albrecht's skills as do the beautiful subtle colours found in the shadows. Click on the image to see the cool mauves - beautiful.

And thank you too for this wonderful cat study.

Great Dixter, Sussex

I don't think my words, or my scanner, can do justice to this magnificent card from Katherine. It's a symphony of colour. Katherine has a unique way of blending and layering her colour pencils so that all the colours are visible and appear to radiate off the paper. The reds in the shadow areas have an incredible effect on the greens and how she has managed to capture that soft, warm, hazy sunlight, I will never know!

Thank you Katherine, for this beautiful card!

The Majan ruins of Copan in Honduras

If there is one thing that I find hugely exciting, it is discovering foreign places. If I can't discover it myself, receiving a postcard, is as an exciting confirmation of my intention to visit that place. Standing with a handpainted postcard from a foreign place in my hand, from a friend...thàt is the ultimate experience. I now have a burning desire to visit Honduras. And I have Charlene to blame for this shameless desire.

.. higher residential level of the Majan ruins of Copan - a city with several tree- covered pyramids....

Her postcard took many small roads to finally get to me and it's far and wide travels had clearly left its mark...but somehow it has added to the mystery of Charlene's card...lost civilizations...age...endurance..a card. Do you want me to go on? I can if you want...if you had this pilgrim card in your hand, you would feel the same...
Thank you Charlene, it took months for Copan to reach me, but it is my story card and well worth waiting for!

When even the ground is gorgeous

Alison Staite was inspired by the masses of fallen leaves all over London – ‘a great excuse to play with orange, red and muted greens’ – to paint this exquisite little piece of the landscape near her home. It’s an increasingly rare treat to find actual personal correspondence in the piles of stuff from the Post Office, and jewels like this are an absolute delight!

Thank you, Alison.

View of the American Mountains from Victoria

This is a view of Charlene's home city of Victoria in British Columbia - and the American Mountains across the border which is the Juan de Fuca Strait.  It's a great vista - just what I like!

The American Mountains from Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Her perspective is taken from Mt. Tolmie - one of the many large outcrops in the city of Victoria and shows the American mountains included are Hurricane Ridge (1,585 m), Mount Angeles (1,967 m / 6,454 ft ) and Mount Olympus (7,980 ft /2,432 m) in Washington State.

As an ex geographer I'm always very pleased to get views of mountains and hills! :)

However I have to apologise to Charlene as the scan doesn't do justice to the colours in the sketch that she's used and I've had no success in trying to get it read better.

For this Sketch I got out Google Maps in "terrain" mode and started having a good look round at Charlene's surroundings - and they're absolutely incredible!  Then I had a good read of the Wikiepedia links......then I started to look at their entries on summitpost!  All that from a postcard!

The area around Victoria

Wee Scottish House in Straiton

Acrylic 14.5 x 20 cm
Bridget Hunter

This is wish fulfillment - to own a landscape painting by Bridget Hunter. What a temptation this must have been for postal workers but thank goodness they delivered it safely to me.

Trying not to gush over Bridget's work because it really speaks for itself. Click on the image to enjoy a bigger version so you can enjoy the brush strokes and the colours.

It shows how much Bridget loves this landscape. Straiton, near the Galloway Forest is where she lived happily for twenty years with her three daughters going to the tiny two teacher school. She says, 'the hills are grazed by black faced sheep and lower down by hardy beef cattle. It's Autumn now and the leaves are turning and being blown off the trees by the squally showers we're getting'.

Beautiful. Thank you, Bridget.

I want to be in this Potager.

Marília   Africantapestry and Myfrenchkitchen  has now left Coin Perdu for the winter but took one last chance to sketch the potager in all its glorious chaotic state. 

Her description of "all over the place tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, herbs, marigolds, celery and physalis hiding their golden fruits in gentle yet firm lanterns, soon to explode with seductive sweetness" paints such a wonderful word picture. But you can see that from this lovely sketch which captures the scene in the potager at this time of year. I love the way Marilia uses pen and watercolour so spontaneously and lyrically to tell the story of the place.

Then there's the envelope showing the

" white pumpkins stretching their arms in every direction and ruling the garden with dominant huge canopies " beautifully done in mixed media.

I want to be there too - I can almost see the insects scurrying around exploring the new wildness as the garden returns to its untamed state .

An old tree in California

A couple of days ago I received this fine line drawing by Pat Reese showing a Californian tree. It seems that I am not the only one who is sometimes speculating what such an old tree has been looking on and has heard during it's life time.
Funny things, frightening situations, drama, silly conversations, a lot of lawn mowing and more...

I wish I knew what species that tree is and would like to request Pat from here to find out for me. Looking at the trunk I would guess it is a Metasequoia glyptostroboides (that sounds great) or similar. In that case Pat would have cheated us on the foliage, what I really do not want to suppose.

Thank you Pat for the beautiful tree and the kind words!

Postcard From Granada

It's such a treat receiving cards from unexpected parts of the world.  Robyn had a recent trip to Granada Spain, and I get to be the lucky recipient of the card painted while she was there!

This is the Alcazaba military area of the Alhambra as viewed from Robyn's rooftop.  Robyn had to climb a steep ladder to get to it.  Given how much I hate ladders and easily suffer vertigo I'm especially grateful! 

I am not sure what time of day this was done but it's bright sky and hot!   Great colours and shadow work and I love all the lushness of the foliage contrasting against the imposing architecture.

Thanks Robyn - it's beautiful!

A vision of topiary in France

Topiary in the front garden of the Chateau Dumas

I've been waiting a long time for my postcard from Bridget Hunter.  First of all it went astray - except I didn't know I was due to get it.  So then I had to wait until the end of the month to work out who might have sent my missing postcard - because of who had not had a painting listed in the month.

I finally worked out it was Bridget, wrote her an email and she very kindly agreed to send a second one. In fact she painted three in total as she decided it was boring doing the same one again!

So this truly beautiful postcard - which I am so very pleased to now own - is of the Chateau Dumas in South West France.  Bridget recently stayed there during a spell of gorgeous weather and describes it as a painter's paradise, inside and outside, with a still life or landscape around every corner!

This particular view is of the formal garden at the front of the house.  Bridget shares a love of topiary with me.  She says that the beautifully shaped bushes made her feel as if she was in the garden of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.

The October card from Down Under safely arrived

Today I received one of those beautiful postcards from Liz.
I love them because they are drawn in such a spontaneous way and I like the combination of lines and watercolours. At the front of the card there are three terrace houses in Globe. Liz thinks their colour combinations are sometimes rather odd but Liz made the best of it! At the back of the card there is an extra image of a tarte she had bought in a suburb of Petersham. She enjoyed it at home with a nice cup of Earl Grey. Both, the cup and the tarte look extremely three-dimensional. And here again Liz has put some lovely stamps on it. Great! Thanks a lot Liz!

Door to the Garden

Desiree Habicht

Watercolor on paper

This postcard comes from Desiree's creative brush during a moment to herself near a garden retreat.  The welcoming cushions on the chair and the open door to the garden allows us to experience the wonderful garden exterior with beautifully accommodating weather but blocked by the bench, keeping us safely cocooned in the cool interior.

 Receiving this card lifted my spirits and kept me smiling for the rest of the day.  I have placed it on the desk that is now holding all of my postcards. 

Here are the cards I have received up to this point.(right to left)

Bridget, Desiree, Katherine, Charlene

Martin, Vivian, Liz and Cathy