Bar Restaurant Le Frog, Villeneuve. Watercolour 30cm x 40cm by Susan Lomas, 2017
In the summer of 2015, the owners of Le Frog, Dee and Xavier Teychene, invited me to exhibit my work at their restaurant. Once the exhibition was installed, I spent many happy hours photographing and sketching on the terrasse. Or profiting from the delightful swimming pool and sampling delicious food from their summer menu!
I must have taken nearly fifty photos of the restaurant, pool and surrounding area but I kept coming back to this one:
The summer terrasse and pool at Le Frog, Villeneuve
I used a bit of imagination and a few memories to add the figures of Dee in her waitress uniform, Xavier with his chef’s shirt and (just seen) their son Jaime at the table on the left.
The family group to the right hand side was inspired by a meal that we ate at Le Frog in the summer of 2015!
Lunch at Le Frog
Various other Serre Chevalier characters found their way into the picture. Elodie on the comfy sofa in the background to the left, Hannah and baby Annabella to the far right, Skip and Sarah being served champagne by Marion, the very patient and hard working waitress, two anonymous little girls making their way to the swimming pool…
I decided not to paint right up to the edges of the paper but to keep a slightly sketchy “vignette” effect. Also I tried not to “overwork” certain areas in the hope of keeping a light almost “Impressionist” touch.
