DweezelJazz Art Blog » Divonne-les-Baines

Painting of the Office de Tourisme in Divonne Les Bains, France

DweezelJazz — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:43:05 +0000

At the beginning of May there was a holiday here in France and we took the opportunity to go to Divonne for a photo shoot. We discovered that very few people were out and about and there weren’t many cars on the road either. It was a great day for taking loads of photos around the place.

I’m considering doing a series of paintings of Divonne and so I have started with the Tourist Office. It’s in a pretty area with a stream flowing nearby and the Casino is across the street.

The painting was done in Adobe Photoshop, using brushes in very much the same way I would paint with normal brushes on paper. Painting digitally gives access to different styles of painting that I couldn’t achieve easily, if at all, with egg tempera.

Divonne is a popular place for tourists. There is very pretty countryside all around, the Divonne lake is near the town, and the town has small shops, restaurants and cafes. (If you’d like to see what the Divonne lake is like, I’ve written about it with lots of photos: you can see them by clicking: here.) On Sundays there’s a market from early morning until around 1:30 and there are loads of people. It’s great fun!

A Walk Round the Lake at Divonne-les-Baines, France, Part II

DweezelJazz — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

We continued to walk round the rest of the lake. It’s an idyllic spot with the Jura mountains in the background.The soft afternoon light through the trees along the water edge is very pretty.There are so many beautiful views looking back towards the town of Divonne and the mountains.It’s quite a paradise for taking in lovely scenes.Here’s a closer look at the island in the middle of the lake.The late afternoon sun makes for fantastic reflections in the water.The lake is calm at this end and it almost looks like the water would support being walked on.As the sun sets it gets closer to time to go home, and we near the completion of our loop walk.Here you can see the view to the other end of the lake, where we started out earlier.In the ‘Port’, there’s a sailing club where it’s possible to rent wind surfs, rowing boats, kayaks and also rowing skiffs. We’re eager to try out the rowing skiffs sometime.It’s a fabulous place to be out on the water.

A Walk Round the Lake at Divonne-les-Baines, France, Part I

DweezelJazz — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Divonne-les-Baines is a small town in France very close to the Swiss border, about 20 minutes drive from Geneva. It’s a popular holiday spot, and the town is known for its spas, as there are several natural springs nearby. It also has a very nice artificial lake. (Click on photos to see larger.)We visited the lake yesterday.It’s quite long, and, at a slow pace, takes over an hour to walk round it, and that’s what we did.Jasmine was there too, creating quite a stir as people realized it really was a parrot in a backpack cage. As usual, she made a good number of friends there.There’s an island in the middle of the lake, which you can see here at the far end.Autumn is showing itself in the changing of the tree colors. The hills behind, the Jura, are covered in trees that are just starting to change.There’s a path all round the lake and there are also tarmac lanes to allow for bikes, roller skaters and anything you can think of. There were many people out enjoying the late afternoon sun and warmth; some going round fast, others strolling along.There are many trees along the edge of the water. Here you can see that the leaves have already turned yellow and red for Fall.There is also a horse race track nearby and horses are out in the meadows just beside the walking path.The many trees around the lake are beautiful to look at, all slightly varying in shades of greens and yellows.