Famille Summerbelle

Drawings on windows

Have you ever tried drawing on windows? I encourage you as I find it very pleasurable!
When I was in Tokyo in 2019, I was lucky to illustrate a large drawing on the windows at the Galerie Doux Dimanche and another one on the wide windows of the Bonton shop in Takashimaya department store in Shinbuya.

In my studio, I am very lucky to have natural light thanks to these large windows. I had fun drawing directly on the glass with a large Posca. It is a water-based paint marker that washes off easily with hot water and a sponge.
If you want to try it on at home, remember to draw the design from inside otherwise it may fade in the rain!

Fig Leaves - Original paintings

For the first time, I offer for sale my original paintings I made over the Summer.

These 8 unique watercolor paintings were inspired by a more than 100 year old fig tree in our family home in the South West of France.
It is a beautiful tree with quirky old branches and large leaves that change colors according to the warm light of the South.
Available for sale on Famille Summerbelle e-shop.

Miró in Majorca

It was my birthday treat during our week in Majorca. I really wanted to visit the Fundació Pilar i Juan Miró in Palma and it was really special: not only it was sunny, it was my birthday (42 eeek!), I was with my favourite people (my husband and my 3 kids) and in a place so inspiring and full of history.

If you ever come to Palma de Mallorca, go and visit this place. You won't be disappointed!

Juan Miró relationship with Majorca lasted his whole life. He was born in Barcelona but his mum and later his wife were from Mallorca. He spent his Summer there as a child and later in 1956 Miró settled permanently in Majorca where for the first time he had a stunning studio built by his friend Josep Lluis Sert.

By this time Miró was already an acclaimed painter but he needed a quiet place where he could retreat and work in silence.
A few years later he needed more space so he bought the adjoining land and San Boter, a typical Majorcan house from the XVIIIth century.Initially it was intended to be a sculpture studio but it actually became his second painting studio for large scale painting. Miró left some beautiful charcoal drawings on the walls of the villa.

My love for colours and leaves

Today is the first day of Spring, my favourite season so I am very happy! I wanted to share with you some paintings I recently made inspired by my love for colours and leaves of all sorts and sizes!
I made a lot of sketches of the beautiful variety of leaves that you can find on the island during our recent trip to Mallorca and made this serie of paintings. Let me know what you think and if you'd like me to make prints from this collection?!

Love of plants

Wildernis in Amsterdam:

Stunning embroidery by Sarah Benning:

Delightful paintings by Elizabeth Barnett:

Painting plants

I always had a penchant for painted plants in pots. These beautiful paintings by Australian artist Elizabeth Barnett are truly stunning.

Jonas Wood

Beautiful plants studies and large scale paintings by American artist Jonas Wood. I wish we could see more buildings painted like this one on the David Kordansky Gallery in LA:

Shelf Still Life, next to the High Line at 18th Street and 10th Avenue, NYC 2014.

Mizuki Goto

Adorable painted images by Japanese collage artist Mizuki Goto.

Amyisla Maccombie

Beautiful hand drawn illustrations by Amyisla Maccombie. Her illustrations are available as prints on her Etsy shop and at the moment if you buy 2 prints you get one free!

What Makes a Home:

The Lonely Fisherman:

Drawings & other things

Have a nice weekend and happy holidays to the parisians! I cannot wait... we're off to Provence for few days next week - just Simon and I - while the children will be in l'Ile de Ré with their grandparents. I am so looking forward to chill out and sleep :-)

Wall tatoo

Stunning animal illustrations drawn unsing Posca pen by French duo Alex et Marine:

Embroidery of the World

Happy new year to you all! I hope you had a wonderful time during the holidays. We are just back from London where we spent 4 days partying, drinking (tea!), relaxing and visiting friends and family. Now we're back in Paris and sadly the sky is as grey as it was in London...
To start the year I wanted to share with you this beautiful book Embroidery Design of the World I bought it when I was in Japan back in September. Embroidery is not usually my thing, but I was so fascinated by the drawings, patterns and colours that I needed to have it on my bookshelf! I often flick through the pages to find inspiration.

When it rains

Another very autumnal weekend in Paris with grey sky and rain. And yes, it rained all day non stop on saturday. I was quite happy reading magazines and browsing around Pinterest but Ophelia was sitting next to me very bored! She wanted to draw and paint mermaids (she is 6 years old). So I grabbed some paint and large paper from the studio and set her up on the kitchen table. Ophelia drew fishes, mermaids and some interesting sea creatures to make an underwater scene...and I went back on the sofa...

What do you like to do with your children when it's raining outside?

drawings...

Over the past few weeks our basement has been buried under an enormous pile of my old belongings. Let me explain. My mum is moving from the house she has been living in for the last decade so she demanded I reclaim everything I had 'stored' since my student days. As I had no idea exactly what was there, I told her to bin the lot. But she refused..far too sentimental. Fair enough!

So here we go...boxes full of photos and letters, a wooden table I made when I was 10 at my Steiner school and a LOT of drawings from my different art schools. So throughout this ugly grey and cold weekend I've spend most of my time sorting out and binning most of it! Sad in a way but at the same time I can't go on keeping it all. We'd need a castle.

I kept the good drawings and some hand drawn architectural plans - they were too painful to throw away as I can still remember the hours spent on each project...Scissors, glue, scalpel and large amount of paper. Back in the days were there was no Photoshop around...

San Francisco map!

Aahhh the City by the Bay! It was just three years ago (almost to the day!) that we finished our three month voyage in this beautiful city. We really fell in love with the place and if we had to choose another place to live it would surely be here.

My brother and his family live just outside of the city and we receive photos regularly, documenting their wonderful balance of city, country and seaside living. With such a cosmopolitan community it feels so vibrant.

So we couldn't resist making a Famille Summerbelle map:

It's worth sharing that before I start drawing and cutting our maps I spend a lot of time gathering visuals and information about the place. This time around, I thought it'd be fun to ask our readers here to give me a hand!

The comments were all so helpful and made the project much more fun! You made me discover things and places I had no idea existed: for the example the buffalos and weekly Lindy Hop in Golden Gate Park!

I hope you like it. We're just in the process of finishing a short film which shows how the map was made. I'll post here as soon as it's ready!

We'll be back in San Francisco early next year, so thanks again to all of our contributors who have given me a wonderful long list of things to do whilst we're there!

Magical Kingdoms

How stunning are these colourful paintings by San Francisco artist Lisa Congdon. The layout with the bright fluorescent pink tape makes this composition even more vibrant.

A sneak preview - San Francisco

So the last couple of weeks have been a mix of holiday and working. We've tried to keep the morning time for work (for which we take turns) and then some good ol' family time in the afternoon.

Most of my work is really not worth sharing (although some of my time has been working on a new website for Famille Summerbelle which you'll see very soon!), but for Julie work time usually means something new and exciting.

She has definitely not disappointed on this trip...! We thought you might like a little sneak preview.

If you follow the blog regularly you'll have seen the shout out for contributions (landmarks, favourite places etc) to our map of San Francisco. Well, here are a few images. It's far from finished, but you can see just how great it is going to be....

We've had so much fun, remembering our favourite places, researching new and interesting places and then learning everybody else's top tips. A total joy.

Thanks to all for the shared comments/tips on the blog. You have definitely made the map more interesting! If you're interested in being amongst the first to have one, then just visit our website and join the friends @ Famille Summerbelle!

The playful world of Takashi Iwasaki

Takashi Iwasaki uses different media to create his colourful designs: embroidery, painting, drawing, collages. He likes to mix his technique to keep his thoughts and ideas fluid and flexible. I first saw one of his illustration in Elle Deco and was instantly blown away. His abstract drawings reminds me of the work of Joan Miro.

Olivier Kugler

Olivier Kruger illustrations are very spontaneous, he often sketches on location with a thin pen and adds colours later on. His work can be seen on the Guardian, Harper's, Time Out.

My desk is a mess...

...and my studio as well! I need to clear it all up to start working on new ideas. Ophelia is now back at school and Lucien has a nanny 3 days a week so it will leave me time to think ahead and plan new products for Famille Summerbelle. It's nice to get some time for myself as well, clear up my head and look for new things, get the paper out and start using my scalpel again.


Drawing I did using Chinese ink and the colours were added later on the computer.