Work in Progress Paris Passy Gate and Do You Work on More Than One Painting at a Time?

The opening for the “Orange Blossom Special” Aril Exhibition at the Winter Garden Art Association was last night and there was a great turn out, wonderful art, crowd, and music!  If you live in the area, stop by and see the show, and see what this great new facility in our community has to offer!

Today I thought I would share some progress on Paris Passy Gate.  I had started this painting after I had designed the Coral Reef Menu commission for Epcot, while the design was being approved and before the actual paintings for the menus were done.  I’m usually a monogamous painter focusing on one at a time.  However, this may be the first time I put one aside for a while after completing two other paintings.  I tend to get in a groove on one painting and really know the palette of color I’ve worked out and the painting techniques I’m using on a particular piece.  Then I don’t over think it too much and just let the intuition kick in.

On this one, with some considerable time apart,  I had to get to know it again. In this case, I am so thankful I made some color notes and swatches.  So I could go right back to the palette I started with.  It sure saved a lot of time.

I may not be making any sense.  Artist friends if you would like to comment please feel free.  Can you easily work on more than one painting at a time, or are you dedicated to one until it’s finished?  Although that’s not to say that, sometimes when I think a piece is finished,  a few day, weeks or months may go by and I decide it’s not and tweak it some more.

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More Work in Progress of Paris Passy Gate

Today I’m sharing some more work in progress photos of one of my latest paintings Paris Passy Gate.  The focal point of this piece will be the gate itself which I decided to mask out so I could just do the background and not have to worry about painting around everything.

I’m working on a softer paper which I can work in more textural techniques, but have to be very careful.  This paper is not for those who like to glaze multiple layers.  The paint moves around very easily if it is re-wet.  It’s great for softening edges but it’s more of a get in and get it done process while working on it.

Since I was  going to be working on the Coral Reef Menu project for a while I wanted to get the background finished so I could remove the masking.  I didn’t want the masking sitting on the paper very long and take the chance of it ruining it or not coming off! It’s happened before. :-(

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Sketching the Louvre in the Tuileries & the Japanese Tourists

I have been super busy working on the Coral Reef Restaurant menu commission, so I thought I would post another sketch today.  This one was done on a day in Paris when the nasty weather had finally broke, (I know some of my readers can relate to nasty weather right now!). The sun had come out and everyone flocked outside to get some sun and fresh air including me!

I headed straight for the Tuileries Gardens, parked myself on a bench, (it was slim pickings) and started to sketch and paint.  I had always wanted to do a view of the Louvre and not get too caught up in the details of the building but be very sketchy and insinuate them with value.  I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Just as I was finishing a lovely group of Japanese ladies on a tour stopped and started to gather around me watching me paint.  The Japanese tour guide asked me in French if it was OK.  (The Japanese are so polite.)  I said, “bien sur”,  they watched and made comments as I was painting, none of which I could understand.  I only know a few words of “tourist Japanese.”  The tour guide indicated to the ladies it was time to move on, and translated to me in French, thank you very much for letting them stop and my sketch was beautiful!”  For which I replied, “arigatou gozaimasu,” the formal way of saying thank you in Japanese.  You had thought I had given them a million yen by their reaction.  They were shocked and amazed that I had replied in Japanese! They all giggled, bowed and smiled, thanked me and were on their way.

Little did they know, probably thinking they had happened upon a French woman painting in the gardens, was actually an American who happened to speak French and enough Japanese to make their day.  They certainly made mine!

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Work in Progress Paris Passy Gate & Some History of Passy

I have been painting the last few days my commission for the cover art for the Coral Reef Restaurant at Epcot.  Since I can’t share any images yet,  I though I would post some work in progress photos of the painting I was working on while the design for the menu was being reviewed.

This piece is inspired by a gate in the neighborhood where I lived in Paris.  I lived in an area near the Trocadéro, where the Eiffel Tower is, called Passy.  This area has historical significance for a number of reasons, and evidence of it’s history are scattered about the area.

It was home to Benjamin Franklin for his nine-year stay during the American Revolutionary War.  He helped maintain French support for the war effort during his time there.  At that time, Passy was a rural village and not really a part of Paris proper.  One can see many tributes to him throughout the 16th arrondissement.  There is a statue near the Trocadéro, a restaurant near where my daughter went to school,  and a street named after him.

Work in Progress of Paris Passy Gate, Watercolor on Archival Paper

Artists, Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisotlived in the area and are buried in the Passy Cemetery. This is also the final resting place of Claude Debussy after being reinterred there from his initial burial at Père Lachaise.  His wife and daughter are buried with him. Balzac also lived and wrote in Passy and his home is a charming, quaint museum.

During the twentieth century, a group of avant guard artists part of the Cubists movement, dubbed themselves the “Artists of Passy”  to form a unit of solidarity. Few among them were painters, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger,  and Guillaume Apollinaire.

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Paris on My Mind and a Sketch From The Musée Rodin

I’m working on a new painting inspired by a place I used to walk by a lot in Paris. That, and the very cold, rainy damp weather we are having lately in Florida have put me in the Paris mood.  Working in the studio, I’ve been drinking Mariage Frère tea, listening to my French music mix and the two radio stations I used to listen to when I lived in Paris, TSF Jazz and FIP.  Both are on iTunes!  The ads are annoying but a great way for me to brush up on my French.

So today I’m sharing another Paris sketch.  This one was done in the gardens at the Musée Rodin.  The Hotel Biron which opened in 1919 as the Musée Rodin is undergoing a major renovation now.  I can see why they would need to update it for accessibility and security.  There was something quite nostalgic about it though, lacking in the modern layer of design polishing apart from the entry.  Once you stepped into the Hotel and walked from room to room, you felt like you were wondering through someones emptied out home with the most incredible art collection that was left behind.

Tomorrow I will be announcing the winner of a Limited Edition Giclée print of my painting Poppies, which I’m giving away to celebrate the one year anniversary of my blog.   If you haven’t left a comment yet to be eligible you still have time by clicking here.

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My Paris Apartment and Chinese Fans For the Dining Room

The building I lived in, in Paris,  was built in 1865 and was the quintessential older Paris apartment featuring wood floors, crown and fine decorative moldings on the walls,  fireplaces in every room, and mirrors above each fireplace that had exquisite patina from age.  I often wondered whose face had gazed in those mirrors.

You may not know that when you lease an apartment in Paris, you are literally starting from scratch.  Nothing is left behind, including the entire kitchen (cabinets included), every single light fixture, (bare bulbs hang from the ceiling), towel rods, toilet paper holders, curtain rods, you get the idea.  If it can be removed, it will be.  It’s just the way.

With a corporate relocation the whole process begins working with a local agency to help youfind a place to live.  After finding the apartment which is a job in itself.  The real work begins.  Usually floors are re-sanded and finished, and walls are painted.  You are blessed if there is no other renovation work to be done which is rare.  Luckily we were shown only apartments that didn’t have to have their insides torn out. You still have to design and choose your kitchen cabinets, counter tops and appliances. Usually the budgets are very tight for the furnishings. Given the budget constraints, your choices are IKEA and whatever is similar to IKEA.  Between Hong Kong and Paris, I poured through the IKEA catalogue so much I felt like I had the darn thing memorized!  I had those wacky Swedish names going through my head for months! A late 1800‘s Paris apartment and IKEA furniture, seemed to me like the ultimate dichotomy. We did have a few pieces of furniture we bought in Hong Kong to add to the mix.

Persimmon Fan

I won’t bore you with all the shenanigans involved in putting it all together.  Suffice it to say that it took a better part of six months and a few nervous breakdowns.  But in the end it all came together and we loved it.  I ran all over Paris and environs to find the furniture, rugs, chandeliers, curtains, all curtain hardware, all the linens, bathroom hardware, dishes, pots pans, etc.  The chandeliers were actually plastic made to look like crystal, well sort of,  and I aged them to look like antique glass.  My neighbor’s mother who was from Italy, saw them across the courtyard, and thought they were Murano glass! :-)

The dining room had two built in china cabinets with large arched openings above them.  They were screaming for a piece of art, but I didn’t have any large ceramic or glass pieces that would have been nice there.  One day while out runningaround I found some inexpensive Chinese fans that were perfect in size.    They were bright red so I covered them with some Chinese papers, and designed paintings to go on each.  I did a mock-up painting on paper before actually painting the fans.  I was inspired to paint persimmons and horse chestnut trees.  Both are asian motifs which I thought would be great on the fans, and I could buy persimmons in the local markets.  Horse chestnut trees lined the boulevard at my local park.  So there was an Asian and French connection!

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Respite from a Cold Winter Day, Jardin des Serres d'Auteuil, Paris France

Here is watercolor sketch I did of the big green house.  I like to use some permanent ink with some of my sketches, specifically when it’s architecture.  This was not done in the winter time but on a glorious summer day!  

We are having a bit of a cold snap here in Florida.  Although, I can’t complain compared to the winter weather in the rest of the country!  Having lived so many years in Californiaand Florida, I don’t do winter very well.  The three times I have lived in Paris the winters were brutal for me.  My last time living there in the 16th arrondissement, I found a treasure not far from home,  the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil.  It’s on the edge of the Bois de Boulougneand it dates back to 1761 under the reign of Louis XV.  It consists of a parterre garden with a huge greenhouse, and aviary, that was open all year round.  I read that they used to store the citrus trees from Versailles here in a hot-house during winter.

Many Paris winter days can be cold, damp, and grey.  When I needed a tropical fix, I would go and hang out in the “hot- house.”  I could pretend I was in some exotic tropical location and all the winter blues would just melt away.  It was hard to leave and have the cold air smack you in the face to bring you right back to reality.

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Sketch Page from the Musée Guimet in Paris France

I’m in design and sketch mode right now on a commission, which I can’t share yet. So I thought I would share more sketches today from the Guimet Musée, in Paris.  I miss this place!!  This page shows sketches of statues from Vietnam, Tibet, and a Noh mask from Japan.

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Books that Inspire: The Greater Journey Americans in Paris, by David McCullough

I love history and travel and feel the two go hand in hand.  I really enjoy reading about the history of places I have lived or visited, especially Paris.  David McCullough’s The Greater Journey Americans in Paris, not only gives us a feeling of what Paris was like between 1830 and 1900, but tells various stories of the many Americans who in the early 1830’s braved the rough seas on sailing ships to live in a country whose language and culture they knew nothing about, with ambitions to learn and excel in their field of work, and in some cases profoundly impact American history itself.

Many traveled to further their medial careers, since Paris was considered at that time the most advanced in medicine in the entire world.  He tells the story of Elizabeth Maxwell, the first female physician in the United States, and Oliver Wendell Holmes and his colleagues who had a lasting effect on how medicine was practiced upon their return home.

He tells of writers, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark Twain, and the influence their visits to Paris had on their work.

Bust of Edwin Wallace Stoughton, Marble,  1874 by Augustus Saint-Gauden, Ringling Museum of American Art

He covers extensively the artist’s journey of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, born to a French father and Irish mother, who immigrated to the United States at 6 months old.  He was trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, and is probably best known for, among many of his sculptures, a monument to Civil War Admiral David Farragut, in New York’s Madison Square and his Diane created as a weathervane for the second Madison Square Garden Building in New York City. We learn of Samuel F.B. Morse’s journey and his ambitious works, of painting vistas of the Louvre Museum.   In the late 1800’s we became familiar with the journeys of John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt.

Probably the most mind boggling is the heroic account of American ambassador Elihu Washburne, who remained at his post during the Franco-Prussian War, the Siege of Paris and the horrific Commune.  His accounts of the suffering of the people of Paris in this moment of history are haunting.

David McCullough is a treasure. His extensive research and propensity to weave together historical accounts in the manner of a storyteller makes this work a joy to read.  I hope it’s on your Christmas list! :-)

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Watercolor Sketching at the Musee Zadkine, Paris

One thing about living in Paris, versus just visiting, is you have so much time to explore the city and discover little hidden gems, that you would probably never take the time to see if you were on vacation.  One of those is the Musee Zadkine in the 6th arrondissement.  This is another location a few of us from the sketch group visited one fall day.

Quick Pen and Ink Sketches of Zadkine Sulptures

It is dedicated to the work of Russian sculpture Ossip Zadkine.  It was his former home and studio and was willed to the city of Paris by his wife. It now has over 300 sculptures and various other works and a number of contemporary art exhibits each year.

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