Category: Usk

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

Day 542 – that travel journal 

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🇫🇷Or breakfast at the Rochester hotel.

 A lavish spread. Heaps of croissants and tasty rolls. Several kinds of delicious cheeses, quiche, home made yogurt and the list goes on and on.  There was even some kind of baked chicken and veg. 👀

 
🇫🇷If you didn’t like what they had you could order whatever you wanted. I always ordered an omelet. We were up so early I did’t want to get hungry before we found a place to eat lunch!! And of course since it was a buffet we tried lots of goodies-perhaps only a bite. 


🇫🇷This lady sat next to me at breakfast one day. I knew she would not notice me drawing her since she was engrossed in her IPad. 

🇫🇷Strathmore mixed media 500 paper, Noodler Konrad pen, platinum carbon black ink, Daniel smith, winsor Newton, and Holbein watercolor.    

🇫🇷 I think I left my heart in France when it’s not in Decatur with my grandkids. 😢 I dream about it a lot!! 

Merry Christmas🎄🌲🎄🌲🎄🌲🎄

Thanks for reading. 

Day 540 – quite a few travel journal pages done

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  Paris Day 1 – Giddy with excitement. 

Now but since I am once again traveling will parcel them out and hope I get some more done. Not easy with an adorable three year old grandson “helping” you out. Lol

Like the layout. It evolved. The right page was done first sketched while we waited for our food. L’Artoise is a sweet little restaurant on Rue d’Artois around the corner from our hotel the Rochester. The Yelp reviews were spot on. Food was passable but not memorable.  

 Debbie and Tucker also cruising on Viking and staying at the Rochester. 
 The Proprietors were sweet and oh so French. The eggplant entree w a slab of store mozzarella was not great. The chicken an improvement – cow au vin I think. 

 We were so excited that dog food would have been wonderful lol. We imagined we were Phil who we followed on his adventures on PBS What is Phil eating. A hoot. Phil would not have eaten at L’Artois. 
 Dessert créme brûlée. Yummy. Then we walked the champs Elysees. I think we walked five miles even with out jet lag. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret off to make Christmas cookies but dreadfully in need of a long winters nap. On the 26th right?! 😊 xxx

Day 537 – Finally

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Figured out the title page for my France travel journal. I filled up two Strathmore 500 mixed Media journals but still have a lot of pages to paint in what I call my coloring book. 

The light was bad on the boat for painting so I mostly drew with my Noodler Konrads while I was on board. 

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret making headway in her journals finally. 😘

Day 534 Dr Sketchys

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Tired Santa –  Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet. 20 Minute sketch. My favorite of the ones I kept.  

 Was great fun last nite.  

All the sketches are 10×14 watercolor and ink with wink of Stella glitter pens. I started with my Winsor Newton wc markers but found it easier to use my two small travel palettes I took to France- a whiskey painters palette and a cotman palette reloaded with artist grade watercolor. The skin tone is quinacridone sienna. Paintbrushes are the waterbrushes. 

What every girl wants for Christmas – 20 minute sketch 

Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet. 
   Princess Augusta  got a little wild and XXX rated with her poses. I have this one to the guys because they stood for twenty minutes with their hands in the air and they were so embarrassed over the pose. Think cheeks were bright red. 

  
Naught and Nice -15 min sketch

Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet. 

  
WIP – Santa’s Ugly Christmas sweater. Ten minute sketch.  Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet

First we did a fast sketch of the model and were suppose to just do the head. I forgot and started drawing his body and his tank top. After we drew him we had to make up an ugly Christmas sweater. The face could use more work. 

 I won two tickets to the Chat Noir New Years party with this sketch. Hurrah.

 I also won a free drink with another sketch but I forgot to take a picture of it. Oops!!! 

It was models choice. 

Best prize we all received tickets for the current Chat Noir show. Thanks Chris and Princess Augusta. 

There are a few more but they really require more work. 

Thanks for reading.  

Margaret xxx

 

Day 522 – Last of the Marais

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St Gervais a beautiful odd church near the Hôtel de Ville. The facade  is neoclassic but the rest of it is gothic with flying buttresses like nearby Notre Dame. 

   
Hôtel de Ville – the city hall. Where else but in Paris would you find an encrusted crenellated palace for a town hall?

  Lights on the plaza. 

 
From Rue Rivoli.  

  
The riverside.  It sits right by the Seine. 

  One of the three back doors. Probably 12 feet tall. Amazing huge things. Statues of famous Parisians march across  the facade. 

Riverside in the sun.   
  Riverside no sun.  
The front from the river.  

Thanks for reading. 
Margaret xxx

Day 521 – Paris to Normandy

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Another map of the places we went on our voyage down, or is it UP the Seine River. I guess we went both ways. Lol. 

Maps are a lot of fun and make a great memory for a travel journal. You should try one.

First make a list of what u want to include. Sites restaurants places u stayed. Then make a rough draft of the roads or river you traveled. Use your photos to jog your memory. They are a lot of fun and your friends will love them. 

I used Carbon platinum ink on strathmore 50o mixed media paper. Love that ink and that paper. Inked with the carbon pen, a Kuretake brush pen for lettering and a Noodler Konrad. The river was inked with the Kuretake for emphasis. 

I drew the river with a pencil first but the rest was drawn straight on the paper with the carbon pen. 

Colors used cerulean cobalt Inathrodone blue burnt sienna burnt umber yellow ochre cad yellow cad red and alizarin. Oh and hookers green. 

Now go make a map!

Thanks for reading. 

Margaret xxx

Day 520 – A Map of the Marais

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I like to draw maps of my trips sometimes. This one is definitely over the top compared to most of the ones I do. I probably have twenty hours in it so far. 

This is a WIP.  I think it needs something more on the right bottom corner but not sure what.  Sooner or later it will come. 

This is the walking tour we did of the Marais – about 2.5 miles- when we first got to Paris. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to complete it. 

The biggest problem I had doing it was figuring out where we went. I had to use google maps to find the street names that went with my photos of the sites. I knew we started at Place de la Bastille and ended at the Hôtel de Ville. That was about it. I didn’t know the names of the streets and couldn’t remember the names of some of the sites like the Biblioteque. 

Bit by bit I found my way thru the Marais so I could draw the streets. The next step was to put the buildings in their proper places. I tried to be accurate with my street layout but sometimes to fit buildings in I had to move the streets a little like around my favorite Merveiulleux de Fred and the oldest buildings in Paris on Francois Miron. Oops.  

I also turned quite a few buildings around to face the viewer like Carnavalet and the Jewish école (school) on Francois Miron. 

I drew this first with a pencil and then inked it with my Carbon Pen for two reasons – the fine point and the ink. Carbon ink doesn’t smear a lot. All done, all erased successfully with no smears. I noticed something that I did not ink. Took off the lid. Started drawing. 

Suddenly I had ink blobs by the river and on La Pause Baubourg. The top of the pen was full of ink. I had ink all over my hands. 😢 I was seriously annoyed. I guess it’s a challenge to fix it right?

  Something else to think about. 

Sooner or later I will probably paint this or maybe just paint some things like the river. 

Bytw I found this very cool map of the Marais on BHV/Marais’ website http://www.bhv.fr/plan-marais/ when I was trying to see what the right side of the BHV looked like. I only had a photo of the domed entrance. Having been in the BHV by the other entrance I knew it was different. Such a plain entrance.   

  
I also found this very cool photo of the BHV there. I had to share it.  It’s all decorated for Christmas now with a British theme. Mine was taken during the daytime. How cool is this store. Too of my list for a revisit whe. I get back to Paris. 

This is a fast sketch Christine  our  tour guide in the Marais and a bit of journaling about it. 
Thanks for reading. Time to tackle drawing the Seine now. 

Margaret xxx

Day 519 – In Search of  Aux Merveilleux de Fred in the Marais

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Aux Merveilleux – each  a bit of meringue clothed with whip cream topped with anything from cherry to coconut or chocolate or coffee. Seven flavors! We had been told they were incrediblé!  A true taste experience. 

 


We only had time to press our noses against the glass and marvel at the Merveilleux marching in rows upon rows of many colors as we marched toward the Hôtel de Ville. ViTe ViTe!

    
Just time to snatch a quick photo of the name and address Aux Merveilleux de Fred Rue de Rivoli and Rue de Pont St Louis Phillippe. ViTe ViTe! Here’s the website! http://www.auxmerveilleux.com/home_en/ 

  
A moment more to longingly gaze into the interior of Aux Merveilleux de Fred. Quelle chandelier! Fantastique! ViTe ViTe! More to see! Time is running out on our tour! 

  
We made it our mission to return and BUY some Merveilleux. Do you know how many Aux Marveilleux de Freds are in Paris alone? Which one had we drooled over? En le Marais! That narrowed it down. 

What address?  Thanks goodness for the photo with the street address.

 TEN metro stops from our HÔtel? 

Three blocks past the Hôtel de Ville into the Marais and turn right on what? Pont St Louis Phillipe! Toward the river?

There it was just where we had seen it! On a corner teeming with people.  

Would there be any left for us? Did we have time to stand in that line? Mais oui,  the line also moved ViTe ViTe!  

Our clerk spoke English learned from Saturday morning tv! A miracle. We got a box of six assorted lovelies and off we went! To the Louvre to l’Orangerie, then to the Seine where we enjoyed our  Merveilleux as we dreamed above the river. 

 
So why post one more photo of Aux Merveilleux de Fred? The line. 

All those people out front. 

Never ever eat at a restaurant or, as in this case, a patisserie that does not have a line.  The line tells you that what is inside is delicious, worth the wait, worth your money, worth the search for Aux Merveilleux de Fred.

Bytw there’s one in NYC now! Watch out Fred. We may be making a field trip! Christmas in NYC with Aux Merveilleux de Fred?!

One more reason short walk in the Marais tomorrow!

Thanks for reading! 

Margaret xxx