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Monday, February 22, 2010

Oyster lover? 365 Days of Drawing...


I personally hate eating oysters. All that slippery goo that you can't even chew. I have never understood what all the fuss is about. Not to mention the high price asked for basically eating sea slugs.


That is until I visited the quant town of Cancale in France, famous for oyster making - and then some.

It was also put on the map by John Singer Sargent who painted his famous 'oyster gatherers' painting there. I was told by locals it was wildly staged. Nothing painted on site as was. The oyster season gone. But hey, JSS could cope with a bit of pre-Photoshop Cancale with his skill set. Who am I to say a word?

The photo of mine here is of a gazillion discarded oyster shells thrown carelessly on the beach by present day satisfied oyster guzzlers. I have never seen anything like it. I stuck my nose down with my camera lense into that stinky mess to shoot this picture. Onlookers thought I was quite mad...well...not too far off there.

I still don't care for oysters much or the mess they leave behind on Cancale's beaches. They are also pretty hard to draw. But a good glass of french Sancerre did make one or two go down a treat.


2 comments:

Rhonda Hartis Smith said...

Somehow you have managed to make this oyster beautiful!

The artist's sommelier said...

Slight correction on the wine that accompanied the fabulous Cancale oysters - it was a very fine Muscadet from the nearby western end of the Pay de Loire region. Marvelous!