Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Atterrissage: Landing in Paris

The first time I saw France's countryside from the descending plane I was more excited than if I'd seen a masterpiece in the Louvre. (and every time thereafter...) L'atterrissage, it is the glorious welcome & the first sign of the adventure that is about to begin. The window view is a prize for suffering through insomnia, cramped legs & a perfume drenched cabin.

You have to sketch madly to try to keep up with the rapid fire changes. But it takes the pressure off of trying to be accurate. Zoom! Observing a high speed morphing design takes all of your focus! The above ink & watercolor drawing is based on my airplane sketches. As in the actual sketches, you get to enjoy a freedom to allow things to sort of happen on their own. It is something CarolG at Paris Breakfasts does in her recent  melanges, "blobs" & color charts.

Speaking of Carol's "blobs" she's been enticing her readers to try them. Today I took one of my little color charts and glazed over it, most often letting colors run into one another. These were great fun after struggling with some drawings that required slow parallel lines & linear perspective. 

6 comments:

  1. What a fun idea!
    I love sketching out train windows but never thought to try it on a descending plane. Bonne idee!
    Great way to break the monotony of arrival tension too.
    thanks for the blob mention :)
    Want a private lesson pre-david?

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  2. I love your profile pic :)
    come follow me

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  3. Great work !
    Best regards from Paris...

    Pierre

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  4. Rita, I love your aerial sketches! They're so lively and inviting. I've always thought about sketching from the air, but have been overwhelmed by the vastness of things. I like how you've made it manageable by focusing on a smaller area. And I especially like how you leave white space in your paintings - I tend to paint like I'm filling in a coloring book page. I need to take a lesson from you and be more casual about the placement of my brushstrokes. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Rita, your airplane sketches are delightful. Because they are for the most part two-dimensional, I might even give it a try. As I flew into Idaho last week, I loved seeing the undulating mountains of the Palouse.

    Oh, I love the blobs!

    (Of course, mine will not be as perfect as yours, but I can start somewhere)

    Bises,
    Genie

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  6. Your works are delightful.They encourage me to move forward. Thank you for sharing.

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Thank you for your comments! They mean a lot to me!