Author: caseytoussaint

I'm an American who's been living in France since 1985. Married to Michel (who's French) and Mom to Claire, Damien and Paul. For a long time I did the work of a 'professional American in France' eg translation, interpretation, English teaching....and spent a lot of time and energy refurbishing an old house in the Loire Valley. Now I'm trying to put more energy into drawing and painting.

Local Color

Here it is!  Thank all of you so much for the beautiful work you’ve done in this book.  I can’t stop looking through it – and I show it to everone that comes to the house!

You can slow down or stop the movement of the images if you want to have a closer look, and if you move the curser over the images you can see the captions.

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Polychromatic Behaviour – Last Stop Before Returning to Sweden

I’m excited and sad to have finished Nina’s book!  What a responsibility, being the last in such a gorgeous series.  ina set the tone in this one with a beautiful wtercolor of the view from her apartment last Spring, and I’ve closed it with a view from my roof this Autumn.  I love the way it sort of encapsulates the summer of 2008.  All of the paintings are vaguely familiar, as I’ve been following along on this blog, but what a difference to see them in real life!

Here’s a preview of Robyn’s entry – I’ve chopped it up a bit in the scanner, and I apologize for that.  Beautiful, warm colors, a great view of Venice, and Robyn’s beautifully controlled approach.  Those messy splashes on the last one are from me – but she asked me to do it – honest!

Glen’s Book


Wow – Glen’s book has been here over a week, and I’m going to have to say goodbye now.  It’s been great having it around – it’s been no trouble but very entertaining.  I was a little shy at first when I saw Robyn’s beautiful entries, but, having after all been through this 5 times before, I quickly pulled myself to gether and got on with it.

It’s becoming something pretty substantial.  Here it is spread out on my dining room table.

Robyn’s work in it is up to her usual high standards.  Here it is, up close.

On the last page, you can see the beginning of my work – it’s fun to see the contrast between my style and Robyn’s, and all of the other interpretations of the flower theme. This gets more interesting as the books grow.

It’s exciting, but sad to see that this project is drawing towards a close.  While I can’t wait to see my book again, I hate the thought of not doing this anymore. Who’s up for another round?

Vivien’s Book – Still here in Amboise…….

Finally – I’m back from vacation, my guests have all gone, my children are away for the day, my scanner’s working beautifully, nobody’s working on my computer to set up a web site – conditions are finally right for catching up with flying pictures!

I’ve started on my pages in Vivien’s book and I hope that by tonight inspiration will have carried me through this project. I’ve only just realized that I never even shared Robyn’s gorgeous work with the rest of you, and I apologize for that! I’d begun scanning her work during my scanner’s recent illness, and my son Damien had to step in in the middle of it all to fix it up. I never got back to my posting….

So here they are (with a bit of Lindsay’s work too, I believe) – and they look even better in real life.

Sorry for the delay, Nina. I’m working on it now!

Rainbow Moments

Whew! I’m finally making some progress in Ronell’s book! I’ve been extremely blocked on this one – something about the title, which is very Ronell, and not Casey at all! So how was I to do anything that wasn’t a carbon copy of Ronell’s unique vision and style? Lindsay and Robyn managed it – but seeing their solutions seemed to block me even more….

And then, late yesterday afternoon, while fussing and fiddling, and remaining very unsatisfied, the solution came together. Proof that the best method is to do something and work it through. My original idea is in the bin (due partly to my having spilled red ink all over it, but it was garbage anyway). That’s the real beauty of this project for me – it forces me to work into new directions, which is a lot of fun once you’ve moved past the block!

And now, fellow flyers, I shall share with you Robyn’s gorgeous work. By the way, Robyn, you are more than a little bit responsible for my panic attacks! Each sketchbook I get seems more incredible than the one before it….

None of these images do justice to Robyn’s paintings, by the way. The detail work is really stunning.

And here’s a bit of a preview of mine – it’s finished but must now be cut to size, which could be a problem. I’m afraid I haven’t left much room on the page for Nina…