This is one of my favorite places in Paris. It was Rodin's home, and he left it to the state for a museum of his work. There's something extra special being in the space where an artist actually did his work.

Plus there's a lovely garden, dotted with his sculptures, where I love to draw when the weather's nice. This was definitely an inside kind of day, but I still had a great time.

These are all Stabilo pen sketches. I'm trying the pens without using any water for wash.

Then I switched over to my Lamy fountain pen plus the Pentel brush pen that has a lighter, warmer black (really a grey) ink.

I love the flourishes in the house itself and how the sculptures look in that setting. This sketch has a little more of the house.

I also took a selfie there, along with the Prodigal Son sculpture I'd sketched earlier.

Here's the main hall. I'm totally tempted to do a block print of it. I love the black and white tiles.

And an Edvard Munch painting of Rodin's work, in the garden of a mutual patron. Two artists I love in one painting. Perfect.

Ok, I'll stop now. But it's my favorite museum in Paris. Please go if you have the chance.

I'm using part of this trip to Paris to try to get the hang of marker sketches. Tom Pruett has been posting his on the Memphis Urban Sketchers blog, if you'd like to see what's inspiring me. (I don't think I can include a link doing this on my phone the way I would from my desktop at home. A google search will come up with it.)

I'm having only limited success so far getting the effects I want, but it took me a while to get the hang of watercolor too.

Above is the Seine. Below is the Bastille monument sketched after making my busking debut at the market nearby. I played my banjo for an hour and a half and garnered 4.50 euros plus one indecent proposal. I never thought If art as a solidly reliable day job, but I guess everything's relative. I had fun, but I feel lucky to be doing this instead.

I tried busking again and earned 10 euros in the same time in the Marais district. Then I bought myself a gelato, sat in the Place de Voges, and did two sketches of fountains.

To make all other sketchers feel superior, I'll include this one, which is not at all what I had hoped. And which may be the reason I mostly switch back to watercolor for this trip. But we'll see.

So I made it. My first full day was a Saturday, and my friend Rene Miller told me he was playing at the Marche dÁligre. He and his part time musical partner Stephen Harrison had been so kind to me last year and really made Paris a welcoming place for me when I was here for a good while on my own.

So I turned out to listen to him (top right), and I just hung out and sketched the market while listening to Rene. I went light and didn't take my full watercolor kit for the first day. I'm still experimenting with these markers in more of a sketching format than a painting one. I'm finding it's an uneven result for me so far, but I hope to improve this trip.

I continued to walk and sketch in the afternoon. This is the first day's set. The very last one has a watercolor wash sky along with the pens. Otherwise, it's all marker and brush pen and fountain pen.

I'm still playing around with new pens in between intense bouts of printmaking. My friend Natalie suggested we go together to Blues on the Bluff this past Saturday night. It's the best fundraiser ever, put on every summer by WEVL, Memphis's volunteer radio station.

It's right down on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi river, and they get marvelous local blues bands to do five sets of music while you eat Central BBQ (Memphis's best, though I know those are fighting words for some) and watch the sunset. This year was beautifully and surprisingly cool, so it was even nicer than usual. I enjoyed sketching, as I often do when listening to live music.

Don McLean, the husband of a friend, was sitting next to me watching me sketch, and he asked if he could take this photo of me. It's fun to get to see the process from over my own shoulder.

Natalie suggested getting there early enough to poke our heads into the preservation tour of the U.S. Marine Hospital, just next to the National Ornamental Metal Museum that hosted the fundraiser. It was built in the 1930's (with a back building from the Civil War era), and it's obviously been sitting vacant a good while. It was neat to get to roam at our own pace, unlike last year's Urban Sketchers group in a similarly dilapidated (but much higher and vaster) Sears Crosstown building. If I'd known we could just stop at will, I might have gone down to sketch this one too. It's frustrating to be herded along as I'm trying to sketch.

Anyway, I took a few photos that I'm posting for the fun of it, in case anyone is interested.

I've continued to play with the new pens I bought after our weekend Memphis Urban Sketchers meeting. I really like the top drawing with the Pentel light black brush pen. It's a warm grey that goes nicely with the cooler black of my fountain pen, and it doesn't hide my lines.

I'm doing less well with the colored markers. I always really WANT to like markers, for the ease of them, but the colors are so strong and unvaried. I tried a quick sketch in the forest on my walk the other morning, but I wasn't pleased with it.

The weather has been utterly gorgeous here, so Mr. Darcy and I went back over to the park yesterday evening, and I did a couple more sketches sitting on a blanket with him. The color one is a bit better, but still not nearly as satisfying as watercolor would be, and I think I regressed on using the brush pen. I'm hoping it was just too late in the day.

Tom Pruett, who inspired me to try these Stabilo felt tip pens, just posted some of his work on our local Urban Sketchers blog. He's amazing. Be sure to scroll down to the last one, which is my very favorite.

He's not working to get the actual color of things with these pens. He's just using blue and brown for more or less monochromatic sketches, blending the two colors for various greys. I tried more of that tonight, sketching Mr. Darcy as he lay on the couch with me. I'm not getting as much blending/washing as Tom is, but I'm going to keep playing with them.

I don't do a tremendous number of people sketches, but for some reason I really love drawing musicians. I'm lucky to both know a number of fine musicians and also to live in a city rich with live music. These sketches are usually in pen and wash, since it's a quick medium that lets me try to capture fleeting moments. I found a whole series of these sketches that I hadn't scanned in when I picked up a sketch book recently, so here they are.

The Mighty Souls Brass Band.

Opera Memphis has been inviting our Memphis Urban Sketchers group to sketch at their dress rehearsals. I love how they are so inclusive of a broad variety of arts in the community. I couldn't make the dress rehearsal this time, but my family went on Tuesday night, and I sketched then instead. I started with the pre-opera sideboard, and then did a watercolor of the set before the performance started.

It was dark to draw, and I was thoroughly enjoying the performance, so I only did a quick one actually during the opera. My figures are challenged enough when I have good light to see by. But I love that the modern setting they gave this show and the fact that the prince, disguised as a wandering minstrel, is dressed as an Elvis impersonator. Perfect.

I went down to the RiverArts Fest downtown this afternoon. It's a great art fair in general, and the music lineup had my favorite band playing. I wandered around, chatted with a Colorado print maker, ran into friends, and heard Jason Freeman play both a headline set of his own and then close the day out with the Bluff City Backsliders, my favorite local band these days.

I often enjoy sketching musicians in general and the Backsliders in particular, but after doing the one above during Jason's own set, and the one of him below during the start of the Backsliders, I realized that today I'd much rather just stand up and dance and immerse myself in the music out under a gorgeous sky. So I did that. Perfect.

Saturday was the Urban Sketchers' International Sketch Crawl. Urban Sketching groups across the world went out to draw together. The Memphis chapter met up at the Peabody, our grand old downtown hotel. It was a fun and elegant place to draw.

After the duck parade, several of us when across the street to have lunch and keep drawing at the Flying Fish. Tom Pruett let me try his water soluble markers. I keep trying markers and having trouble getting the effects I want. These are made by Tombo, and they were fun to try. I might have to get my own pack. They're neater than watercolors, though I like actual paint better, despite the trouble.