French Homework: My Style of Dining in Paris

 I wrote it all in French: Assignment: Describe a favorite meal. I'm not a cook so I wrote about my favorite meals when in Paris:  "La cuisine à emporter", take out food, but not McD's. Asian traiteurs, the neighborhoods of Rue Cler, Rue de la Huchette, & Rue Mouffetard with such varieties of fresh, ready made food! Boulangeries everywhere with more than just bread: sandwiches with fresh ingredients, quiche, salads, soupes. Guichets, windows with counters, where you can watch your crêpe being made, or where you can buy Middle Eastern food. The Monoprix grocery & department store. Oh! And the outdoor markets for fruits, vegetables, cheese, bread, & regional dishes~ & lots of French language to hear.

Where to eat? I admit I have eaten crêpes from the guichets standing on the sidewalks. But benches, oh the benches! They are in the the grand parks with magnificent statues, but also in church courtyards & along sidewalks, and near so many architectural wonders!  (And probably other places I have yet to discover...) If it is raining? Portez toujours un parapluie!

Why not eat in restaurants while traveling? Obviously to save money, lots, (which you can then spend on books & scarves!) There's more: by eating outdoors  you can spend more time enjoying the amazing buildings & action of Paris. Benches are my friends & support while sketching, & also my favorite form of restaurant.

I recently learned the expression, "se mettre dans la peau de quelqu'un.", to place yourself in another's skin, to see their point of view. I understand that restaurants are a big form of entertainment for many tourists, so I know my way is not for everyone.    

N'importe où, bon appétit!

Drawing: Natural or Learned?

 A dear Blogger, La Table de Nana, (who has a most beautiful, creative, happy, loving blog), asked:

"Did you learn to sketch/draw with movement 

or was this natural for you?"

I replied on the previous post, but have thought more about it:

I do observational drawing by feeling the movement & gesture. It is my natural tendency, but I only found it when I was learning by the methods of Kimon Nicolaides in The Natural Way to Draw, 1st published in 1941!  I was lucky that my high school art teacher used this method because it was great for us minority kinesthetic & right brained learners. I think the book is best used in a class or group because students can pose for one another & someone can call time limits for the quick gesture studies. 

My college drawing teacher also emphasized perceiving your subject by physically feeling it rather than just visually aligning things. 

But a drawing can call for different approaches, in my opinion, so integrating the knowledge of diverse techniques & elements such as formal perspective is valuable. 

Finding a process & a medium that best matches one's own nature, as with anything in life, is important. For me, line, a sort of scribbling, is my favorite art element. If you only gave me one drawing tool to use with paper, it would be a fine ink pen. (But please, don't take away my colors!)

I seek out drawings to which I am intuitively attracted  as a way to discover my own inclinations. The drawings of Vincent Van Gogh have such linear energy, such feeling, such movement, as do the sensitively rendered drawings of Rembrandt.  

 

 (I should not be showing master drawings in the same post as my own sketch, but it is important not to compare one's work, & to just stay centered on what one truly loves to do.)

Portland Sunday Morning: A park & a bakery

I don't get back to my old city as often as I used to. But I've been attending monthly Saturday French workshops at my old school, The Language Exchange. 

I still like to get up early to go sketching. Above, from my car, a Sunday morning sketch at Bug Light Park, South Portland. There are oil storage tanks behind this park, as SP is a pretty industrial city, but it has preserved some great shore front space for the public. 

Bug Light has lots of outdoor benches, but downtown does not. So next time I'm in Portland, I will try sketching from my parked car, before the meters kick in. This time, I found an indoor bench at Standard Baking Co., where I ate my raisin roll & watched a steady stream of customers.

Such animated comings & goings, interchanges & transactions! As in French boulangeries, which are the inspiration for this bakery, everything is created daily, right there, in the wee hours of the morning. Standard delivers to restaurants & cafés each day, but buying these pretty & fragrant works of art directly, along with morning coffee, is a fresh & energetic way to start the day! 

Storyboard for French Homework: Le stylo plume

 Story-board, un Scénarimage, un Scénario-maquette

with 6 panels pasted onto an accordion fold book.

The writing assignment: To imagine shopping for an item, conversing in French with a shop person, using the comparative & superlative forms. Students "shopped" for things like L.L.Bean Boots, a birdhouse, &,  moi: 

For a fountain pen in Paris.

An American tourist greets the salesperson in a Parisian stationery shop with "Bonjour Madame," & she says she's searching for a good fountain pen. She explains that in the U.S. people don't write with fountain pens as much as they used to, & the U.S. doesn't have as many stationery stores as France does! 

The salesperson shows several pens & compares their attributes. Our tourist comments on the fact that her writing is better with a fountain pen than with a felt pen & it's the worst with a ballpoint pen. 
The vendeuse comments that with fountain pens one needs to use smooth papers of good quality.

The sales person invites the tourist to try some pens (without ink), to see how they feel. She also tells the tourist that she speaks French well. (Is she just flattering her? wonders the tourist, but she enjoys cinversing.) The salesperson asks the tourist where she's from. They chat...

After having purchased her new fountain pen the tourist departs & the two women exchange parting salutations. The salesperson tells the tourist to enjoy her new pen & to enjoy the rest of her stay in Paris.

The tourist does enjoy the rest of her stay, 

using her new pen to write & sketch her impressions of beautiful Paris, its landmarks, & its activity. 

(Click on on the drawings if you would like to read 

my flawed French.)

Mount Desert Island: Early Spring

It's early Spring & I am spending more time outdoors on this beautiful Maine coast. We finally made it to

Mount Desert Island. View from the town park in Bar Harbor. 

The carriage paths and trails were closed due to being wet and soft, but the boat launch at the end of

Eagle Lake, across from Cadillac & the Bubbles, was open. 

 Yesterday I pulled out my old pre-digital photo prints of MDI. I have started sketching from these photos

as well as sketching on location. I'll never forget the first time I saw the wondrous arrangements of rocks on the trails of Acadia, called rock cairns. 

My 7th Grade Science Project

I just FINISHED & delivered (Yay!!) a project for an open art show with the theme of Art & Science. (2 of the sub-themes: "intense scrutiny of a subject" & "artistic interpretation of scientific investigation.") I paid tribute to my 7th Grade Science Project: A painted color wheel on canvas that you could spin to show that "the presence of all colors is white." Did my 7th grade wheel show that concept? Maybe not too much, but what it did show was how much I loved color & how scientific knowledge could expand my love. After all these years, I am still madly in love with color & color theory. 

The simple collage turned out to look like a child's work, which makes sense. It's part revisiting 7th grade, & part research to review what it is about color theory, especially in relation to painting, that is important to me today. I also loved thinking about the intersection of science & art & the differences. (If you are curious, you can click on the art above & maybe read some of my abbreviated thoughts on the subject...)

The initial notes were spontaneous & fun. But during the process of the finished work, there was literally some blood (cutting myself on the frame) & literally some tears, dealing with my personal stumbling blocks. The work is not a masterpiece, but the satisfaction in exploring & expressing my thoughts about a beloved subject, as well as persisting to the end in a process that was out of my comfort zone, THAT was wonderful.

More Sketches from The Yellow Book...

...the one with the too thin pages...

Who knew that it would be so much fun to use. 

(though my next book will have heavier weight pages)

The yellow book accompanies me on my frequent library visits.

Quiet, calm, & with a view, 

the reference room of The Belfast Free Library 

is a great place to sketch.

Yesterday, while waiting for a Gordon Bok & Carol Rohl concert at the Camden Library,

I used the super fine Slicci pen instead of Durapoint.

With a lighter line, 

my colors had to do more of the defining than ink lines. 

Colored pencil is not ideal on these pages 

but they are way too thin for watercolor.

For you local folks, our 1st meeting at the library will be on Monday, April 11, 10-Noon. 

Free & open to the public, bring own materials! 

Free to stay in the library or wander around 

Beautiful Downtown Belfast!