Contemporary American Folkart
A French Life
by Judi Castille
1M ago
The last few months I have been working on new project that will involve my love of fabric, needlepoint and tapestry; my love of Poultry, fishes, birds and Folkart will feature alot.  For many years I’ve loved these bright coloured domestic scenes, often painted on wood panels, or embroidered on family heirloom cottons. I made a decision last year to embrace AI to work alongside my own illustrations. Time is a factor, at 57 years old with many projects running alongside each other, I need to practical way to generate my ideas. AI was perfect.  I have lots of motives I wish to incorpo ..read more
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Tales of Yo Ho Ho
A French Life
by Judi Castille
1M ago
After copious notes, migrains, a bout of strong depression that lasted six months, and the fear of not being able to continue what I started, AI came to the rescue. I know it’s controversial, but for a writer, as I feel now I can at last call myself after getting to around 40,0000 words, the ability to set free the depths of my imagination, my dreams, my characters trapped on white paper, into the visual world, has been cathartic! I haven’t stopped illustrating, nor designing silly guinea fowl in jumpers, but my head often overflows with ideas and sadly my typing fingers can work faster than ..read more
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Retro studio
A French Life
by Judi Castille
4M ago
The studio is almost complete. Boxes have been unpacked and 1950’s to 1970’s inspired fabrics, objects have found their home. Its a place of colourful happiness for me and hopefully it will find its way into my creative work. Full of toys and more to be brought over soon from my Farmhouse studio, its a reflection of my illustrative and book writing work..joyful and fun ..read more
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Artificial Intelligence
A French Life
by Judi Castille
4M ago
As you might know I am writing a book about a swashbuckling, motly crew of pirates on the Rockkng Horse galleon. Its a tale of high seas adventures, bad cooking by a French Lobster znd a Devin Crab and a small crew who get into lots of trouble. There are obviously the badges, immoral rogues without the slightest hint of compassion, but somehow I love them. My aim is to illustrate my book, but for fun I decided to play with Dalle-3 IA to try and bring my characters to life. With a lot of descriptive input involving character traits, clothing styles, objects, the weather, I managed to create lik ..read more
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Autumn Expositions
A French Life
by Judi Castille
5M ago
The French love expositions, artistic ones, wool fairs, potatoes fairs, poultry fairs, if it’s a rural, local pastime, there will over the long summer and into autumn, be an event occurring in a quaint little village. Our area is no exception and this year has been a good year with Crocq, Auzances, Orsenne, and just in a month Nouhant expositions providing me with much needed art exposure and a little income too. France is expensive and with rarely ability to carry your UK profession accross the water, most of us fall back on hobbies we once had and try to step them up to being more commercial ..read more
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Recreating Retro
A French Life
by Judi Castille
6M ago
Back in 2019 we purchased a 1970’s car paint shop just on the outskirts of our local town of Gouzon. It’s a bustling little town conveniently situated very central to the historic towns of Boussac, Aubusson and Auzances. It came with a house too, which we redecorated, removing alot of the issues a house lacking in love, often finds itself with. The paint factory was in rather better shape and needed just a good sweep and jet wash to rid the carbon from the car breaks and copious sanding of grey undercoat and painting in cheerful shades. However life throws curve balls and with covid raging an ..read more
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Soapy Dogs
A French Life
by Judi Castille
7M ago
It’s hot and sweaty here in Central France, 36° today and hoping for storms. The dogs sleep most of the day and tumble listlessly on their day couch as outside is a furnace. But when dogs are sweaty, it’s bath time! Sake and Bella have always been bathed and actually love the whole process, getting a good scratchy massage along the way. They then roll about and wash each other on their clean dog blanket till dry. They smell of lemons rather than a sort of shortbread mushroom aroma. Good dog dogs ♡ Waiting for shampooRinsingHappy ..read more
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I have to begin…
A French Life
by Judi Castille
8M ago
Just this week a writing group in a town just a short drive from me, started. Being so rural, any social group can be a lifeline from feeling buried, but with all my building work going on right now, sometimes I have to miss quite a few..but I still keep up on social media and participate as best I can….enthusiasm I don’t lack. So having missed the first session, I still wanted to complete the introduction and copied it here as it sort of sums up where I am right now with writing. ▹What kinds of writing do you do on a regular basis? I write my blog http://www.judicastille.com. I started back i ..read more
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Dirty Day
A French Life
by Judi Castille
10M ago
What a dirty, messy day. We finally installed the chickens and Bovril into the old coop and cleaned the garden again. It’s been a mammoth task after having left the garden for three years! The chickens are now scratching away happily. DottieRufus We had a horrible week with a fox attack and lost two of our cockerels, Max and Rollo and lovely Lilly and Paty. Heartbreaking. Somehow Rufus had escaped. So we decided that now we have left the Farmhouse and moved back to the Barn for running rental and renovations, being away was too unsafe and the remaining gang had to come too. The Farmhouse poult ..read more
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Unlikely combinations
A French Life
by Judi Castille
11M ago
Yesterday I had a wonderful surprise …..an order from a lady in Alabama, which given the enthusiasm of the Southern States for my guinea illustrations, mugs and fabrics, wasn’t in itself a surprise. I believe with their strong homesteading roots and often paired with religious fervour to till the land, guineas feature heavily in their poultry selections, not only for eggs, but as early warning alarms, but mad-cap entertainment and companionship. If you’ve ever heard a group of guineas excited about nothing in particular then be prepared to have sore eardrums. And with the added silly jumps, so ..read more
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