Juliette Orton

I do love textures! I often take lots of photos of surfaces that excite me and some get filed away and sadly never see the light of day (as happens with so many of our photos these days) but others do get used as inspiration in my artworks.  I love the fabulous French stone that is used in so many of their older properties   Layering and markings created by peeling plaster and left by climbing plants Fantastic stonework around the portail and facade of the Saint-Jacques church in  Aubeterre-sur-Dronne  The door to the church has great ironwork around the lock. My imagination is now buzzing with different ways these textures could be represented with a range of mixed media so watch this space! julietteodesigns.co.uk julietteorton.blogspot.co.uk facebook.com/julietteodesigns twitter.com/julietteorton 

  So finally this summer (after a challenging couple of months health-wise) I managed to relax and kick back.....in France.  My parents bought a property in south-west France in the late eighties to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary and their love of all things French. When I say 'a property' it was more like a stone cattle shed with a new roof. There were no stairs or sanitary wear but there was running water and electricity, what more could you want?! My father was a structural engineer and my mother fluent in French (having lived and worked there in her early twenties) a perfect combination for the job in hand. With 3 children in their twenties, they were looking for something that was both inexpensive and easy to maintain - a project that they could put their energies into and be used by friends and family alike. Now, some thirty years later, the 'cottage' as we refer to it (I'm really not sure why) has 2 flushing toilets, a shower, kitchen...