Jill Louise Campbell

Painting is but a dream of the world I choose to see for its beauty.

As our world twists and turns navigating a rampant infection that has affected everyone for the past year my personal solace is deepening into the visual story of my recent France adventures,  as painting is but a dream of the world I choose to see for its beauty.

1. Dozens of painted sketches I brought back from my three months immersed in the Southwest French countryside needed finishing. Each a treasure of flowing memories. ‘Ferme Bleu’
   
   a stately home harmonized in its abundant land, walnut nut trees their income for generations. ‘Ville Fleurie’
   

Flowers en mass fragrance a whole village.  It is little wonder  Yves Rocher the herbal master alchemist sourced  the abundance of nature’s healing gifts around him.
‘Alchemist Home’

‘Tent Flowers’ and ‘Sing to the Flowers’

I explore flower stalls at the little town markets that roam across every region.

Sitting at cafes a favourite occupation is sketching the abundance about me. It’s nuances only plein d’air offers.

Our last six weeks of France was spent in the small canal village of Poilhes, in Languedoc.

 ‘The Canal du Midi’ with moored holiday boats occupied hours of gazing at the creative array of floating homes. 

By far my sacred wanderings were most thrilling in discovering remote hamlets in the mountains separating France and Spain. Since 1971 Duart and I have explored the narrow roads through Basques country, the land of The Cathar, edging into moorish Spain. By chance we came across Mount Bugarach enroute to Perpignan.

Jules Verne authored ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ because of his long fascination with caves and tunnels about this mountain. My exaggerated imagination wide open to extraterrestrial presence felt its presence. The mystery a metaphor as the cloud cover that ever so slowly wafted over its rugged face. ..........  ‘Portal in the Pyrenees’

Thousands of photos, dozens of FB and Instagram posts, pages and pages of writings while experiencing the richness of my favourite places it is these and a dozen more paintings I treasure. Their rich colour combinations, captured moments in my mind as I filter my perceptions from kilometres of traveled roads, thick dusty books found on owners shelves in century old stone houses we called home for our brief time in their magical world.