I’ve been out and about sketching in Paris the last few days. I’m not trying to bring home a full show, which frees me up to follow my nose each day and do some experimenting. And also to sketch baked goods for future enjoyment. I’m using my normal 5.5” journal on this trip, but I also brought a larger square watercolor journal with real watercolor paper (above and below), which opens out to a landscape shape. It’s nice to push myself to paint a little larger and let the paint swirl. I’m using a selection of fountain pens with different colored inks on some of these (green above and brown for the pain au chocolat), and I’m also having fun with the brush pens that have two different strengths of sumi ink.

Today I thought back to the direct watercolor challenge of June and decided to paint Luxembourg Palace with no line drawing first (second one below). It’s a brain stretcher but also kind of fun.