Grapevine

During my recent holiday, we travelled in the Châteauneuf du Pape area which is in the Rhone wine region in southeastern France. The entire area is about 8.5 miles long and 5 miles wide.  Obviously I had a great time tasting some wonderful wines, but what was equally enjoyable was seeing all of the fields of grapevines.

Unfortunately, at that time of the year the grapes (Grenache, Mourvèdre, Syrah, etc.) had already been picked.  I had great difficulty in finding bunches of grapes that had been missed to photograph and even more challenges in finding some that were in close proximity to the old twisted vines.  However I did manage to take a couple of decent photos.

Since I was jet lagged this week and waking up early, I had an opportunity to paint before going to work ;-)  Ok, so after work I crashed. But is was worth it because I missed my regular painting time while I was away.

Here is my latest painting in three separate stages. I've called it "Châteauneuf du Pape Wanna Be".  In the early stages of compositions similar to this, I like to add a bit of colours so that I get a better context.  Then I started working on those blue grapes.

Here is the final product:

In other areas in the southeast of France, we saw some beautiful vineyards where the leaves had started to turn red. These were beautiful sceneries.

Have a great week
Danielle