If I can't say Moulin Rouge...

…I'll just Say Red Mill.

Red Bubble has had to remove these two images

   from my gallery

due to a complaint by the

   

 Moulin Rouge Corporation

that I used their name unlawfully.

And

I thought it was just 

Free Advertising.

Belle Inspiration Magazine

The new issue of Belle Inspiration is out, and it's a beauty! I'm thrilled to see my photo on the cover, and I have a photo tour of Normandy in this issue, as well.  I'll see if I can get a link to that to post here, but in the meantime I'll post a few of the pix from the article.  If you love Summer in France, French Décor,Photography, Versailles, Antiques, Paris... oh you know, all the things we love, well this is the magazine for you!  You can subscribe to it here.

And there's a special treat this month, as Editor Mimi Bleu begins to tell us her story of how an American girl on vacation in Paris meets the love of her life , and never leaves the City of Light!

Dame Marie-- a village in le Perche

view from our room at Château de la Ballue

I am blogging sporadically these days, but I post everyday on my Facebook page, French at Heart .

I hope to meet you there!

Since Google will not let me leave comments...

... on your blogs

or even leave replies on my own blog...

I might as well go dance.

so sorry, mes amies, but its the thing between my server and Google.  They just don't get along.  I'll try again tomorrow night.  

Happy Labor Day to my American pals!!

Back From France!

w h e a t  f i e l d s  i n  N o r m a n d y

It's been a long time since I've blogged, and to those who've come by and not found me, I do apologize.  I hit the ground running as soon as we arrived home, and I've barely had time to look at our photos, let alone edit them. But I will share a few, because I know you all love France, like I do!

We landed in Paris early in the a.m. This was my first shot, from the rooftop of Galeries Layfayette

This year I made a point of finding this rue first.  Great street art in Paris, Could be by

Jeff Aerosol, but more likely by Nemo of

 Belleville. Rue du Chat-qui-Pêche is 

considered the narrowest street in Paris. It

is only 1.80 m wide for the whole of its 29m 

length.

I had to make a beeline to my favorite place,

L'Ile St. Louis.

Don't you just love the idea of a little

 island right in the middle of the Seine? 

And wouldn't you love to buy your fruit here?






Then it was off to the 6ème

and the famous place de St.-Germaine-des-Près
[where supposedly Jean Paul Sartre drafted the philosophy of existentialism]

And just a few doors away




e

The most adorable Art Nouveau resto, and I hope to eat there on my next trip.  But for now, a photo will have to suffice. Have any of you eaten there?



More soon...

Leaving tomorrow for Paris...

...to do some serious [ window] shopping!

oh, I'll buy a macaron 

or two...

I'll pass on les poulets

and although this shop is near our apartment, I probably won't be coming home with 

a Goat lamp

I'll hit this hard...

and this...

...and try to fit this is my suitcase

...though I doubt I can fit them both.






So à demain, mes amies, when I'll be sitting in a chair in the air!!!

Only a week to go!

c h â t e a u  d e  m e s  r ê v e s

We're leaving for Paris and the French countryside in 7 days! I expect to see a lot of this...

and a whole lot of this

If you want to see what else we'll be looking for, you might want to go on over to 
Quiddity 2, 
where I did a long post on the famous 

Puces de Saint-Ouen...

Hydrangeas

All over Normandy right now there is a 
profusion of Hydrangeas. The more acid the soil, the more blue the Hydrangea.  Alkaline soil produces pinker shades. No matter the color, when we move to France, I want dozens of these bushes!

Colza

C o l z a  i n  t h e  L o i r e  V a l l e y

Colza is in bloom now in France.

Here's what wikipedia has to say:

Colza oil is a nondrying oil obtained from the seeds of Brassica rapa, var. oleifera, a variety of the plant that produces turnips. Colza is extensively cultivated in France, Belgium, the United States, the Netherlands and Germany and Poland. In France, especially, the extraction of the oil is an important industry. In commerce, colza is classed with rapeseed oil, to which it is very closely allied in both source and properties. It is a comparatively nonodoriferous oil of a yellow colour, having a specific gravity varying between 0.912 and 0.920. The cake left after extraction of the oil is a valuable feed ingredient for pigs.

I did this photo 3 years ago as a study for a painting. 

 I still have yet to do the painting :\

jolie fenêtre

L a c y   W i n d o w  i n  t h e  1 0 è m e  

Paris Party!

There's a Paris Party going on tonight...

I'm posting over at Quiddity 2
You're invited to come and follow the link to see many, many tributes to the 
City of Light!

I have been offline for a few weeks with horrendous internet problems--part of the trade off for living in  a rural paradise, I guess.  But I think I'm back now, and in the meantime I have had another article published in the always beautiful "Belle Inspiration" magazine.  If you would like to read my article on the Fairy tale village of Gerberoy you can click here.

Au revoir,
dawne

Happy Mother's Day

A  M o t h e r' s  L o v e

a tender scene observed at the Musée D'Orsay

I  t h i n k  t h e r e  m u s t  b e  

s n o w

a t  M a r i e  A n t o i n e t t e 's  

h a m e a u

SuperMoon!

dawne polis

Did you all see the SuperMoon last night?

They all came out in Paris...

dawne polis

...but only One Cow was awake on 

Everafter Farm

in the sentier

As I start to think more about our upcoming trip to Paris, my longing sends me to the bookshelf to see if I can get a little closer to the City of Light through reading.  I just finished Penelope Rowland's "Paris Was Ours" and it is  truly a wonderful collection of essays written by 32 writers who, for a short time at least, had the opportunity to live in Paris.   
Now I'm I'm getting cozy and  re-reading 
Cara Black's 

"Murder in the Sentier", 

and I'm reminded that the rue Montorgueil is in the Sentier. This is an area in the 2nd Arrondisement, home to the garment district, as well as to some shady ladies on the rue Saint-Denis, or so I've been told. We once rented an apartment right off the rue Montorgueil, and although I never saw the shady ladies,
I do know that it's the garment district, as my friend and I brought back to the states an entire shopping bag filled with lace that we found discarded in the trash outside one of the ateliers.[ Maybe we were the shady ladies!]

 We walked by this interesting place every day for two weeks, and for some reason we never ate here.  But it remains one of my favorite buildings in Paris.

My favorite type of "shabby chic".
What about you?  Have you ever eaten here?  And have you ever read Cara Black?
I think her mysteries are "interactive" as you can read them with your Paris city map open beside you and follow her protagonist, Aimée Leduc through all those familiar 
quartier rues.

More Belle...

The darling Mimi Bleu, publisher of 

Belle Inspiration Magazine, 

just sent me a link to my photo essay on Marie Antoinette's hameau in the recent issue.  If you'd like to see it, click here or here.

We'll be going to this very place on 

Bastille Day, as part of our upcoming 

Photography Workshop in Paris and Normandy, where we'll be teaching our "painterly technique". 

For more info, email me at iluvfrance@wildblue.net

Happy Easter!

R e s u r r e c t i o n  D a y  i n  P a r i s

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.

  

They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.  In a loud voice they were saying:

  

   “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
   to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
   and honor and glory and praise!” 

 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

   “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

                                                                              Revelation 5:11-13

Beautiful Belle Inspiration!

a p p r o a c h  t o  t h e  h a m e a u

from the story "L'Hameau de la Reine Marie Antoinette"

I am thrilled to have my photo story on Marie Antoinette's hameau featured in this month's issue of 

Belle Inspiration Magazine!

from Belle Inspiration's Facebook page

And what a beautiful issue it is, filled with all things romantic, feminine, fun, and French!

I've found lots of new Etsy shops I need to visit, and also several new blogs I need to check out.  And at under $20 for not just one, but TWO subscriptions, it makes the perfect gift for yourself and a friend!

Thank you Mimi Bleu, for doing such a wonderful, creative job with your magazine!

**********

There is still room in our 

Photography Workshop 

in Paris and Normandy

July 6-11

scroll down  to see more samples of our photographic technique

and please contact me for more details

Dawne Polis

iluvfrance@wildblue.net

Photography Workshop~~PARIS~~July 11-16

b o y  w i t h  r e d   b a l l

s i m p l e  b & w, o r...

  t e x t u r e d...or...

t h e  "p a i n t e r l y"  p h o t o g r a p h






a n d  e v e n  i P h o n o g r a p h y

at versailles




Dean and I are leading a
 Photography Workshop in Paris and Normandy
 July 11-16


We would love to have you join us as we photograph the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, and the streets of Paris,
spend Bastille Day at Versaille,
travel to Monet's gardens at Giverny,
and sleep in a French Château!


All photographers are welcome, 
from beginner to expert.


For more details, please email Dawne at
iluvfrance@wildblue.net 




We Hope to see you HERE!!!

textures by French Kiss Textures and Boccacino