I'm so enjoying my stay here (basic things like a lovely room at the Hotel de Biencourt and some marvelous food) that I spent a third night here. I walked out this morning to sketch on the town and found the weekly market going, so I bought some apples and did a sketch.

For lunch I ate at a cafe just up from my hotel, mostly for the view, and sketched my street. I become a self indulgent urban sketchers in Europe and gravitat to sidewalk cafes for comfort and refreshment while working. Not generally an option in America, sadly.

There's a skylight above the bed in my room. I'm up under the eaves in a delightful space, and I was even more self indulgent after lunch and took a nap in a sunbeam. In a supreme act of will, I pried myself back out around 3:30 to revisit the chateau grounds before leaving tomorrow. I love the trees there and did twofer sketches of them. Overall, a lovely day.

I took the train to Azay le Rideau today. I'm staying just beside one chateau, which I toured and painted today, and there's another chateau with more gardens two or three miles out of town that I can walk to tomorrow.

For some reason I was just worn out today, and I don't think the top painting is one of my best, but I was more happy with the pair of sycamores I painted. They are just lovely and are also on the chateau grounds.

Here's a photo of the chateau, since I didn't do it justice.

I took the bus from Amboise to Chenenceau today, and it was stunning. Those who know me will be slightly surprised I made it past the sycamore-lined boulevard to the house. What a lovely approach! But the house was a knockout, with beautiful carvings and details and an overall gorgeous situation.

The light was just right as I got there at ten, so I painted first and then toured the house during the midday flat sun. That took quite a while, and afterwards I explored the rest of the gardens and painted lines of tulips in the cutting garden while waiting for my train.

I finishes the day having dinner in the main square below the chateau in Amboise. I keep painting the Leonardo chapel, but it's in such a stunning situation.

I haven't met many people here interested in my drawing, but a girl at the next table, Laure, was an avid artist herself and watched me work. It was fun to practice my French talking to her and her family. And lovely to have a bit of company when I'm traveling alone. I hope she keeps drawing.

I walked into Amboise from the railroad station across this  bridge over the Seine and was met by the chateau towering above me. I found a hotel and headed there immediately to both tour and sketch. I felt such a closeness to my Grandmother Wellford as I toured the place. The summer I was 17, she took me on a six week trip to England and Scotland. We got Britrail passes, got off the train at each stop, wheeled our suitcases to the tourist information place to find a place to stay, and rolled our suitcases there as well. We were a month into the trip before we had a firm place we knew we would stay that night (with a friend of hers in Edinburgh).

We also toured many stately homes together, she looking closely at every piece of antique furniture and me spending extra time in each garden. She would love seeing these chateaux with me, and I'm so grateful to her for giving me the early can-do feeling of traveling on trains in a foreign country. It was a wonderfully powerful thing to do for a 17 year old girl, and I am eternally grateful to her, as well as to my parents who traveled with us early and often.

I did my first sketch after touring the chateau and finding my way to the top of the garden.

This is the view over the walls and down into the square below.

Here's the stunning old tree in the garden that caught my eye.

Quick watercolor of the sunset last night. I was done for the day and taking a walk after dinner, and this view caught my eye.

The chateau where Leonardo spent his last years.

A very quick sketch done at dinner tonight. They were closing and wanted my table and chair.

This is what greeted me as I got off the bus downtown. A friend who knows me well had teased me that I would ignore the Louvre for the trees outside, and for this day I did. In my defense, it was sunny and 75 degrees, and I just wanted to walk and paint.

I walked across the Seine on the Pont des Arts where people leave locks with messages written on them clipped to the bridge.

I painted Notre Dame from its side garden and then went on over the bridge to the Ile St. Louis where musicians were playing big band swing. How they got an upright piano out on the bridge I'll never know. I sat to listen and draw.

I also treated myself to a spinach and egg crepe in a creperie. I sketched the window into the kitchen as I sat there.

Finally I walked back to the Louvre and did a watercolor as well. A lovely first day in Paris.

I've been quiet here lately as I frantically get ready for a month in France. One of my wonderful new sisters set me up to pet sit for three weeks with a friend of hers in Paris, and I'll spend one more week traveling the countryside somewhere. I leave this morning, and I've got copious sketch books packed, along with watercolor and pen and ink. I've never been to France at all, and I'm thrilled to have this chance to see the art there, see the churches and gardens, and make some of my own art as well.

In the meantime, here's a watercolor I did this week at Dixon Gardens with the Memphis Urban Sketchers.

I did two house portraits on the same block this week. It's fun to be painting with the flowers out, and it's good to have sunlight to paint in again. I also enjoyed working for friends who know both me and each other. It felt neighborly.

Below is the first house portrait I've done that included people. My recent wedding sketches gave me the confidence to say yes when Rosemary asked. She and Sasha are leaving the house they love for a different school district, and it was special to be able to help them make a keepsake of a place they had been very happy.

Above is my sixth Lenten psalm block, taken from Psalm 18. It is the last one I finished this year, although I still hope to do a block from Psalm 22 to honor Good Friday as well. With a recent trip, I just couldn't get it done in time for this year, but it will join the series soon. I already have it drawn out.

And here is Easter. I wanted color for Easter instead of the stark black and white. I mixed an orange and a yellow and tried several different ways of rolling them on top of each other, a technique I saw in progress at the venerable Hatch Show Print in Nashville when I visited there.

Here is the final version, taken from Psalm 149. It feels good to be out of a long and dark Lent and poised to celebrate Easter.

I sketched my second wedding on Saturday. It's a kind of frantic thing to do -- I worked during the preparations and the photo sessions, and everyone was moving around quite fast. I ended up doing 22 rapid watercolors in about two and a half hours.  The bride and groom posed a few minutes longer for me to finish the top one, which I was quite pleased with. All the others were even quicker and more calligraphic, but it was fun to catch the changing kaleidoscope of the day. It was also very special to be right at the heart of such a joyful, momentous day, and I appreciated the family inviting me into their midst.

Above are the couple with the groom's children. His daughter again and her niece and nephew are below, along with the bride's mother fastening her into her dress and the groom waiting for his first view of his bride.