Collection: Fabienne Blanc

I always wanted to paint and draw...

I remember in middle school I would create drawings on my cardboard dividers and at home I would have a blast on sheets of paper.

At the age of 14, in 1972, my mother gave me a very beautiful box of oil paints and canvases. I reproduced one of Vincent van Gogh's self-portraits, a painter I loved very much. Then I made a still life with the imperfections of my youth and without the advice of a professional to correct them.

At the age of 15, in high school, I participated in a plastic arts workshop that allowed us to express ourselves. I made another still life in oil, suggested by our teacher, which I still have. I improved my technique. I had also bought some books on this technique allowing me to better understand how to proceed, the relationship of colors and values, etc.

I continued to paint canvases until I was 21 years old.

Since there wasn't much space at home, I quickly had to stop.

After passing my baccalaureate in 1975, I decided to follow the path to become a DPLG architect, my wish still remaining to be a painter. But I told myself that breaking into this field is quite difficult and that with training as an architect I could always find a job in various companies.

I selected a workshop at UP4 at the Beaux-Arts school, quai Malaquais in Paris, which trained us, among other things, in drawing with black chalk on large formats. After two years, I could draw landscapes, buildings, and all sorts of statues and objects in museums from life. At the same time, I took nude classes at the Beaux-Arts workshops in the city of Paris. Always large formats, in charcoal and black chalk.

I chose to take the Fine Arts visual arts competition, which I hadn't really prepared for, alongside my architectural studies. There were three tests: the nude, the imaginative drawing and the presentation of a work. I passed, but of course, not being among the highest ranked, I couldn't choose the studio of my taste.

For health reasons I did not graduate as an architect and once I entered the workforce I gave up; it took too much energy.

I continued to make nude drawings at the Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse for a few years. With a small notebook, I amused myself by sketching people sitting on café terraces.

I started painting again with great pleasure at the age of 39 in 1999. I made many watercolors as an autodidact by painting from life or from my photos. Working in an architect's office from the age of 41, and the work being exciting, I gave up painting.

Since September 2022, I have resumed watercolor by taking group classes that allowed me to be with other students, and to be followed by a teacher. I did an 8-day internship on the Ile de Ré as well as in Morocco.

At the same time, I am a workshop of the Fine Arts of the city of Paris where I produce oils and acrylic paintings on the theme of chimeras and metamorphoses.