Category: Travel journal

Day 562- Happy Anniversary

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My blog is one year old today!! WordPress has been great!! Already twice as many followers as I had on my old Blogger blog after 9 years. 

 I have been putting off painting this sketch I made one Saturday nite when we sat under the Eiffel Tower enjoying watching it sparkle. 

So many people were there including the guys who hawked these twinkling Eiffel Towers and bottles of champagne. I imagine someone would be busy picking your pocket while you bought one. 

Pick pockets are terrible at the Eiffel Tower but we had nothing with us but our room cards, a sketchbook, and a pen or two in my pocket. No money. 

They gave up trying to sell us one when I sat down on the curb and started drawing.  Once again I drew the people as they drifted by. 

 

 
So Happy Birthday blog. Thanks for following me. 

Oh TIP: How I painted this. Wish I had taken photos. First I painted the tower with Winsor yellow and let it dry. Then I painted the people with a mixture of mineral violet and cobalt and bits of burnt sienna and burnt umber.

 Then I painted the ground and the tower with Quin gold. Shadows got added wet on wet violet and cobalt. 

The dark sky was painted TWICE Inathrodone and burnt umber mixed. Let it dry between coats. If this were not in my sketchbook I might paint it again. Last I added shadows where the girders crossed. 

Trees. Ooops forgot them. Quin gold and Daniel smith green apitite with some of the night sky color painted over it. 

Is the tower accurate? NO! But it does give the feel of standing under the tower on a dark nite enjoying it twinkle with the rest of Paris. 

Day 561 – Rouen returns?! Changes!! 

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 Final for the moment – Place du Vieux Marché – the Old Market Place in Rouen

Can’t remember if I posted this since I have painted on it for a couple of days which is why I am calling this Changes. See if you can find the changes.  I know I posted it on Instagram but not sure about my blog. 

  Earlier this evening 

This is the the market place where Julia Child first tried French cooking in one of those buildings in the background. It’s also the place where Joan of Arc was burned and the large grey roof is the church dedicated to her in the middle of the market place. Rouen is also the capital of Normandy and forty miles or so from the coast or La Manche – the Sleeve – as the French call the English Channel. 

  
 About three pm
The customers were sketched in as the drifted by doing their shopping. A lot of them had dogs or small children. It was a holiday – Armistice Day which is a big deal in France still. 
  
Yesterday!!

This was the original. Some of the figures and the trees did not stand out. So I spent the next day off and on brightening or darkening the surroundings to make the painting pop more. I used my camera a lot taking photos of it to see if something else was needed. 

Too tired to post the colors.  Maybe tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 559 Rue de Renard 

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Opposite the Cafe La Pause Beaubourg near the Hôtel de Ville in the Marais. Also down the street from the Pompidou where we had spent the morning. 

Absolutely loved the art in the Pompidou. What a massive building. With its insides on the outside odd looking among the late 19th century Hausmann style building. And this day so hot inside. No cold weather when we were in Paris during November. A very muggy 70-80 degrees with 91% humidity. 😳

I was impressed with the great masses of humanity walking the streets of the Marais.

 People everywhere and almost to a man or woman dressed in black. Evidently after September one must wear black in France!! And most had their faces down reading their phones. 

TIP: I always take a just in case photo of my drawings as I do them. I actually popped the original photo of this into Waterlogue to see what it would do and tried painting it that way.  Not easy since the colors in the ap are not normal watercolors. But fun to try. 

Colors used!! Painted with my travel pallette. Cerulean, Quin gold and Quin sienna on the buildings.  Quin magenta, burnt umber and Inathrodone for the darks and watered down for the side walks and greys. 

Red is cad red mixed w Quin coral to brighten it. I was too lazy to go dig up my Quin red.  Lol. 

A little hookers green and some phtalo blue. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 556 A bit of Mixed Media

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What do you do with all thosepostcards  you pick up on your travels!? Mine usually stay in a cubby hole in the desk til I have a clean up and toss them. 

 
 Sad to say I the only thing I bought for this book was the Eiffel Tower on the front when we were in Les Andelys and of course the postcards. 

 
 I collected a lot of ephemera like the items on the back.  I have two bags full. I needed a map for the accordion part of the book. Did I bring ONE map back. Not a one. 

  
Luckily I found some copyright free maps on the internet and printed it out. I printed several but only used this one. 

  
The accordion was also made from the map.

  
Here’s a shot of the book with the accordion extended. Each postcard is backed with vellum so that you can journal on it about your trip.  Thinking I may glue some more of my ephemera in it. 

  
I have a large bag of stamps left from when I did a lot of mixed media. Could I find it?! After hours of looking I did and NOT ONE French stamp. Finally I did yesterday morning. An hour and a half of going thru the bag  – stamp by stamp – I finally found about a dozen. I actually had separated them back when I got them but put them in with the Italian stamps. 

 
   I had several that were larger than the rest and wanted to use them anyway so I cut them down and mounted them on some paper that I already had.  Since of course I now had a surplus of stamps I had to add a few to these pages. 

 
This is the book that has the directions for the accordion postcard book. Fairly easy to make. And only took about five hours to assemble. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx 

Day 554 – La Bouef Sur la Toit 

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A slick restaurant around the corner from our hotel. It means Beed on the Roof. Delicious food. Glad I finally got this one painted. 

I used lots of Quin gold, also Quin sienna and Phthalo blue. Quin coral. Grey hair is burnt sienna and cerulean. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 553 – Montmartre 

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Do you like it better with the red Moulin Rouge or all ink?! 

  
I really have to quit drawing these in my sketchbook. Somebody is already asked to buy it or a print. So now I have to draw it over. WHY    do I do these things?! 

Carbon pen with carbon platinum ink.  Great fine point pen but sometimes it leaks BLOBS On your just drawn paintings. Sigh. BIG blobs.

I have a French Seine riverbank landscape I was working on yesterday.  Yes.  You guessed it. BIG BLACK blob. No warning. 

It also leaks into the cap which can cause problems. Sigh. What’s a girl to do?!  

I know. White out?! 😜

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 552 More Brevard!

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Main and Broad in Brevard. I think it’s the town hall or the court house?! Watercolor, Noodler Konrad w D’artrementis Document Brown in strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook.

I drew this sitting out near O P Taylors on Broad which has a good view of the court house.

The tree and building were still decorated for Christmas. I love that people no longer zip the decorations into storage the day after Christmas.

brevardcourthouse2

A great view of the mountains as Broad Street drops off toward Asheville.
My biggest dislike about the Strathmore Mixed Media 500 journal is that it’s very difficult to make lay down  flat giving a large shadow down the spine. Not very attractive in the middle of a painting!

I guess I need to flatten it on the scanner but so much easier to use the cellphone for a quick pic.

Colors used. Cerulean sky w a touch of cobalt. Red w yellow ochre for brick colors. Burnt umber and Inathrodone for shadows, roofs, truck and street. Hookers green w Inathrodone for the for tree.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx who is off to the Columbia Art Museum for the Georgia  O’Keefe exhibit.

Day 551 – Sapphire Valley NC

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SweetwaterThompsonRiver
Out the Back door. Watercolor, Noodler Konrad w D’artrementis Document Brown in strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook. .

Spent the last week in Sapphire Valley at my sons trout farm that he bought last fall. A truly lovely spot. I sketched this as I sat on the back deck on one of the few sunny days we had.

The Thompson River, a trout river, runs through the property with at least two waterfalls. When you fall asleep at night you can here the river rushing by.  It’s surrounded by stands of hard woods and pine trees.

This was painted with my whisky painters watercolor box and waterbrushes.

Colors used. Cerulean sky. Grey is Inathrodone and burnt umber with touches of hooker green for the moss on the trees. River. Hookers, cerulean and yellow ocher.

Rhododendrons hookers and cad yellow.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

 

 

Day 450 – O.P.Taylor’s Toy Store

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O.P.Taylors Toy Store – Watercolor, Noodler Konrad w D’artrementis Document Brown in strathmore Mixed Media 500 sketchbook. 

In Brevard NC a charming small mountain town near Sapphire Valley. We all love to visit O.P.Taylors Toy Store http://www.optaylors.com in downtown Brevard on the corner of Main and Broad Street. 

O.P.Taylors Toy Store is truly a fantastic store that kids dream about. Toys packed to the ceiling in this old two story store. Even the staircase ballisters are popping with stuffed animals. There are several other locations including one in Biltmore Village and a website. If you find one nearby check it out. It’s truly ToYLaND!! 

I drew the store as I sat outside waiting for my kids to come out of it. It’s a dangerous place for a grandma to go with her sweet grandchildren. They didn’t need another thing after the largesse of Christmas so I sat outside to avoid temptation. 

This is not the front of the store but the side that faces Broad. 

Colors used. Everything in my whiskey  painters travel box. And a white gel pen on the Christmas lights. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

 

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Day 546 – Sycamores 

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Line the streets of Paris. The French like to prune them into odd shapes. I don’t like trees that Americans prune like this but in France there are so many I grew to like them. They line the Seine River and many streets.

 In the 1880s it became fashionable  to take the air but one did not want to get a tan so trees were planted and pruned to indulge this whim especially in Paris. 

Colors used. Leaf French ochre w Quin sienna and Quin burnt orange. Cerulean.  Splattered with whatever soup was on my palette. Strathmore 500 mixed media journal, Konrad Noodler, carbon platinum black ink. 

Thanks for reading.  

Margaret xxx