'Valbonne Monologues' Launch

Last year, somewhere in April, the author Chris France modelled (fully dressed) for a full and enthusiastic drawing class.

Some of the participants reworked their drawings into paintings, and from those, after a breathtakingly exciting finale, Chris chose one of the excellent paintings for the cover of his new book, 'The Valbonne Monologues'.

The winner was Sandra Seymour-Dale's watercolour-with-a-twist, exactly the style that Chris was looking for - and he was very impressed with the other paintings as well, that is why they are all printed in full colour in the book! By the way, also the Hangar and its surroundings, as well as several artists and teachers are mentioned...

 

If you are interested you can pre-order the book via chrs.france@gmail.com or you can come to the festive launch in Valbonne on Friday morning 15 March from 10.30 in Café Latin, as well as Saturday the 16th, same time, same location...

Cover Competion

The cover of Chris France's second book by Sandra Seymour-Dale

You may remember that Marina's drawing group participated in a contest to design the cover of the second book about 'Valbonne and the lives of the idle rich' by Chris France.

14 participants drew Chris in several poses during a sunny Monday morning and then had almost 2 months to work out their sketches in a full colour design. Not everybody had the time and the energy to work it out, but 6 showed their results last Monday and I proudly present them:

Chris France by Wim Teunissen

Chris France by Bevvy

Chris France by Cathie van der Stel

 Chris France by Brenda Moorhouse

 

 Chris France by Fiona Biziou

Chris chose the painting that was created by Sandra Seymour-Dale because it had the qualities that go best with the book: it is funny, sharp and slightly silly. Furthermore it had the dog Banjo in it, something which Chris really appreciated... But he was very impressed with all of them!

He talks about it in his daily blog (if you scroll a bit): www.valbonnenews.me

Painting for (the) cover!

Last Monday the model-drawing group had a special project!

Rock and Roll producer-now-author Chris France, who has published an interesting and funny book on 'the daily lives of the idle rich in the Côte d'Azur' is working on the sequel.

The cover of the first book is a nice yet very simple picture....

Because Chris has been joking around in his daily blog about being a model, I offered to provide the cover for the second book, by way of a design contest: we would get to know Chris by drawing him during our regular Monday morning, where he would sit for us. We would then take all kinds of pictures, and everyone would create a painting with these. When that's done, end of May, I will send him the pictures and Chris will choose the one he thinks is most suitable... Eternal glory for the chosen one, nice publicity for the Hangar too, a fun project for all - and Chris has had his first 'try out' modeling session...

The first part of the contest took place last Monday!

Chris arrived in his lovely 'camper' Bluebell, bringing all kinds of attributes that might inspire and help... a tennis racket, a golden record, wine, cigars...

We had a group of 14 interested participants, who all agreed that Chris was a good model, albeit with his clothes on, but at least he sat very still and he has interesting features like a moustache and a goatee...

After 3 half hours of intense drawing, everyones impressions of Chris had improved significantly! I am happy to see that 'getting to know someone'  by drawing them actually works...

And then we started the photo session...

All participants are now working out their drawings and paintings into their design for a cover. End of May we'll get together again, to take the pictures and then send them to Chris who will make his choice! We'll keep you posted...