Last Stop Paris

The last day of our journey was spent in Paris. We planned ahead to see the Pierre Bonnard exhibit at the Musee D'Orsey.  

The front of the Musee D'Orsey

The exhibit was unbelievable. I've been a fan of his paintings since I majored in art and painting at UCLA one hundred years ago. There were room after room filled with his paintings. The main focus of his subject matter was intimate scenes of his home and his friends and family plus a dog in almost every painting, so I could really relate to his work.

Bonnard's paintings have incredible color combinations. 

Painting in Monet's Garden

We painted in Monet's garden Monday night. 

We all spread out in different directions to paint.  There were so many glorious things to paint it was hard to choose where to sit and paint.  

Here's my first sketch. I will post the finished painting tomorrow. 

New Home in France

So we took a poll and no one wanted to return home from our painting trip to Giverny. The only solution is to buy this house and stay on in Giverny. 

This home is down the road from Monet's home. 

The problem with our plan is that none of us is rich enough right now to pay for our new home.  We have gone back to the "drawing board", so to speak to come up with another plan. 

Gates, Shutters and Flowers, Oh Boy!

There are wonderful things to paint everywhere in Giverny,  I love how the climbing flowers are the right color to compliment the gate and shutters. If I were an artist I would paint this, well maybe I will. 

In Which We Leave Provence

This morning we left our B & B and to catch a train to Normandy.  We spent a relaxing week In Provence painting, touring, and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

Sous L'Olivier B & B, our home for the week. 

I look forward to painting from some of the photos I took in Provence. 

I will miss dessert at the B & B

I will miss rose buildings with blue green shutters. 

I will miss digestifs served after a meal to aid your digestion. 

It was a productive workshop and I was really pleased with how well everyone painted and how much fun we had. Our plan is to return for another week workshop in Fall 2016.  

May 8th in Europe

Today is Liberation Day in Europe. In fact it's the 70th anniversary of the end of WW II in Europe.

We happened on the cemetery in Giverny today where we saw this memorial to 6 British soldiers that died nearby when their plane was shot down near the end of WW II

Positive Results From Provence

Alice Schilla did this wonderful painting of the Abbaye. 

Debbie Reid is hard at work. 

Linda Loftis is very happy with her work. 

Watercolor Workshop in Provence

Here we are all working very hard at our painting. We are staying at a wonderful B & B in the Luberon region of France. It is called Sous L'Olivier which means under the olive trees. 

Talk about shuttered windows, this is an amazing location for them. We are all snapping pictures right and left of wonderful windows, delightful doors and beautiful bicycles. 

The weather has been fine, the guide has been brilliant and the painting has been exceptional. A good time is being had by all. 

Drawing Cakes

I am thinking seriously of staying in England and living in this tea room. I had tea and scones there Tuesday, tea and savory scones there on Wednesday and lunch and orange cake there on Thursday. The ladies who run the tea room are friendly and the baker is talented and kind. Of course the clientele is gentile and  I especially like the rock scones.  

Under the pretext of painting at Pegotty's I was able to spend a lot of extra time there.

Here's the painting I produced in the bakery. 

Wouldn't you want to live there too? 

Painting Workshop Participants in England

All of the participants had a good time during our painting workshop in Tenterden, England. 

Art Lesson From England

Directions for drawing while traveling : 

Choose to draw a scene from a location you want to remember.  

Don't everything in the room or all that you see. Pick a portion of the scene, just enough to give a sense of where you are.  

In the drawing below, I sketched only the top of the Japanese dresser , the contents on top of it and the bottom of the picture hanging on the wall. It seemed to me to be enough to fit on one page in my 4" x 6" journal. 

Here is what I was looking at. It's the dining room at Little Dane B & B in Tenterden, UK.  

Here is my almost finished painting.  

I started the painting with washes of cobalt blue for the shadows and then built up layers of paint, 

Drawing and Painting Castles en Plein Air

In the suburbs you don't often see castles. The area of SE England where we are staying is full of castles. 

Bodiam Castle

Here is my painted sketch of the castle done while seated on a bench in front of the castle. It was quite windy and chilly out. When I unwrapped a Kashi bar for a snack, two ducks came over to sit by me. I think they may have been art critics because I heard one of the ducks say I was a quack. 

Visiting Winston's Churchill's House

We visited Chartwell, the private home of Winston Churchill and his family. It was full of memorabilia from his life, including his cigar and hats among other things. You could not take photos, but the guides thought it might be okay for me to draw some of the less important things. I drew one of his silk top hats and his cigars and was amazed to see that he collected cigar boxes just like me! I now plan to read all about him and his wife Clementine. 

Today we traveled through the countryside on a steam engine train to visit Bodiam Castle, which was built in 1385.  It has a moat filled with water surrounding it. 

I am finding British pub food very nice. 

Cider

Yorkshire pudding, treacle glazed sirloin and cider

It was necessary to have a hearty meal after an exhausting day of painting. 

First Class Suitcase and How to Use 2 Point Perspective

Look closely at the right and left sides of the suitcase. Do you notice anything about the vertical back sides? They are smaller then the front vrticals sides. So you can "fake" perspective simply by squeezing the back vertical lines or making them a bit smaller. 

Another trick I read about recently to create the illusion of objects receding in space is to try to see the angles of the sides of a box or suitcase as corresponding to the same position as the numbers on the clock. Try either or both methods when you need something with 2 sides recede.

The reason for "first class" in this post title is because I was upgraded to first class on the first leg of my trip from San Diego to Seattle and that's where I did the suitcase painting.  

We visited Windsor Castle today. 

How to Effectively Watercolor Travel Journal

My travel journaling methods change from journey to journey as I discover new art supplies, art techniques and toss out methods that do not work well.

Now I take a small amount of art supplies. I bring a journal that I make myself with my favorite kinds of paper, Arches 140 lb. cold press and Raffine mixed media paper. 

My homemade journal for SE England. Ollie seems to like it. 

I sewed in the pages in a very poor fashion. 

The size of the journal depends on how much time I have to devote to each page so I can complete the page in less then an hour.  

Pre trip completed page. 

This trip, my goal is to chronicle in words and pictures my journey. I started with a page about packing, which is important to the success of my voyage. I have heard that journaling before a trip helps with "pre-trip nerves".  Reminding yourself that that preparations need to be adequate but not perfect helps too. 

Drawing Ellipses So My Waterlilies Recede

This week's lesson in my online drawing class is all about how to draw ellipses as they receed in space. If you understand this simple concept then your drawings will have a lot depth in them. 

By the way, it's not too late to sign up for my ONLINE Drawing and Painting Daybook class. Some of my online students have shared their practice drawings with me and I have seen  that studying and practicing drawing has improved their drawings a whole lot. Contact me if you want to join the class at anywhereart4u@gmail.com and I will enroll you today! 

The trouble with understanding the technique of drawing receding elispes is that it is not explained in most drawing books. 

Elispe practice study

A student who was born in England gave me this book several years ago. It is the only book that I have ever found with receding ellipses explained. Maybe nobody but me worries about getting their ellipses  to recede? It is very important to me since I am going to paint again sitting in front of Monet's water lily pond in Giverny, France next month and I want my water lilies to recede to make Monet proud of me.

The book that explains about receding elispes and much more. 

Preparing for Drawing in England

The last time I was in the English countryside, I was enamored by the idyllic sight of sheep grazing in green meadows.  I did some paintings of these scenes. My paintings came out okay and even sold, but when I looked at the sheep I had painted, I thought they sort of had the physique of a beagle dog. That should come as no surprise to any of you who know me since we have owned several beagles and I drew them constantly. I rarely draw sheep as I don't run into sheep very often in my neighborhood.  When I am in England next week and see fields of sheep, I am going to be prepared. I have been proactive in my preparations for this upcoming trip and have studied and practiced exactly what sheep look like.  Their noses were rather challenging to draw so I plan to view them from a distance.

I have also practiced drawing European hares in case I meet any who want their portraits painted. 

Painting Flowers in England

This is the cottage I am planning to buy when I go to England. It is in a small town near Oxford.  I could take the local bus into Oxford anytime I am in the mood for a bit of city life.  However, most of the time I plan to spend my days around the thatched cottage, clipping flowers and painting watercolors. My friends will be the lovely people who live nearby in the village and the locals I meet at the pub after I have finished painting for the day. You are all invited to come for a visit and clip flowers and paint with me. 

Packing For A Painting Trip to England

All the important items I must bring to England

Tonight I started getting ready for my upcoming journey to England.  I got out my suitcase, my guide books, my pens, paints and paper and a few incidentals. I pride myself on being a modern traveler and having all the latest traveling necessities. I still need to locate my parasol, my extra pair of gloves and my box camera.  Do you have any helpful suggestions for me as to what else I need to bring along for a Spring sketching and painting trip to S.E. England?  Your help will be appreciated. 

Drawing on Vacation/ Drawing Assignment #11.

When you go on a vacation you might want to take your sketchbook with you and draw some of the sights you see. 

Sometimes you see something you want to sketch that would make a nice travel memory.  

However, sometimes you just don't have time to stop, sit down and draw so I suggest you take a picture and create your drawing when you have more time. 

When you are taking a picture in a public place, sometimes you have people and things in your photo that you want to omit from your drawing. So feel free to simplify your photo and leave out anything you don't like.

I started my drawing with a pencil sketch. 

Once I had my drawing looking reasonably ok (remember it doesn't have to be perfect), then I got out my Sanguine color Pitt pen and drew with the pen over the pencil lines. If I drew something I didn't like I just drew another line over it, somehow that looked okay, after all I wasn't painting a masterpiece just recording a memory in my sketchbook. 

Can you guess where I am vacationing? Ok , you guessed it right. Doesn't my drawing look like the Washington Monument with some villa type official buildings behind it? 

My sketch needed some color to capture the cool, crisp day, so I added some watercolor paint on top of the ink sketch. 

For those of you who are in my online class, your assignment #11, this week is to do some pencil sketches of things you observe and photograph. Take your sketching materials with you when you go out and do your drawing in a coffee shop, a bakery, a park or ?  Happy Drawing...