This morning I walked out early to get downtown for the morning light. I'd had to abort the painting above when the sunlight vanished a few days ago, and I wanted to get it done today since I still had sun. This view is right on the edge of the Tuileries, conveniently the gate closest to Angelina's, which makes the best hot chocolate in the world. Which is why I was there to spot it in the first place. Paris is such a different landscape with it's tall buildings and delayed sunlight getting down to the ground. It's one reason the parks are so important here. They're open enough to catch the sunlight all day.

Afterwards I went on in the park proper, a bit unsure of what to paint next, but the red umbrellas caught my eye.

In addition to the watercolors at Luxembourg gardens, I did three journal sketches on Monday as well. It felt great to have good weather and be on a roll. I started the day saying hello to the lions at St. Sulpice. I seem to sketch them every time I come to Paris.

Then I did a couple of serious watercolors, and after I had lunch with St. Genevieve, my favorite of the statues of queens up on the terrace overlooking the gardens. I love the line of women statues there, and she is particularly beguiling. I did a quick sketch of her after lunch before going back to do another more finished watercolor.

Finally I headed towards home. I sat in the sunshine on a bridge over the Seine for a bit, just drinking in Paris. And then I sat in the Tuileries and sketched the Louvre. It was my favorite building to paint my first year here. I haven't sketched it as much lately, but today I was drawn to the fountain and the trees framing it.

Had a long, lovely walk back to the north of the city after mostly sitting all day. I enjoy the rhythm of walking and sketching and walking again, always seeing new things I'd like to paint.

It was sunny today! I could not have been more delighted. I spent almost the whole day in Luxembourg Gardens making the most of it. I did three finished watercolors there (this blog post) plus three journal sketches that I'll post later.

One watercolor was of a spectacular tree that I have unaccountably walked past without pasting proper attention in years past. I enjoyed spending time with it today. And also with a kind gentleman who saw me painting it and also does watercolors. I told him about Urban Sketchers and also spread the gospel of my water brush, which is such a quick and easy sketching tool to have. He shared his strawberries with me, and I enjoyed a little friendly conversation since I'm traveling solo.

I had a gorgeous walk home in the sunshine. It's funny how ridiculously happy I feel just for being able to paint all day. I've been looking forward to this so much. I hope the weather holds for a bit.

I feel like I am doing a complicated dance with the weather patterns trying to paint this trip. I've had to stop two different paintings partway finished due to weather in only three days. The good news was that I got sunshine long enough this morning to finish the one above of Notre Dame. I was so happy to see the cherry trees blooming when I got here, just like my first trip to Paris three years ago.

Then I laid off working while it rained again and sat in a cafe with my friend Rene having a lovely catch up of the year's news since we'd seen each other.

It was colder than I had expected today, and I got pretty chilled, so I headed home for tea and a late lunch. I had an argument with myself about going back out to work, since I'm in Paris and should take advantage of that. But cold feet won out. My compromise was doing a sketch of the rooftop view from underneath the duvet. I love this view and feel so lucky to get to revisit this place. I'm grateful to the friends who trust me with their cat and their home while they travel.

As I finished the first window sketch, the moon rose beautifully above the rooftops, and I couldn't resist a second. As with the Grand Palais, once you've drawn something once, you've learned it to a great extent (although there is always more to see), so a second sketch at the end goes much more quickly. Also I just did a half one, to get the moon.

 I sat at an outdoor cafe today during sun, rain, and, and sun again while I did this sketch. I'm trying to do at least one full watercolor a day and hopefully come home with a show. If I get enough sun, I should be able to do more than that and still have some time to enjoy Paris.

I spent the week at NaCoMe church conference center outside of Nashville with a group of marvelous women. It's a beloved place of my childhood. My sister and I went twice a year with our own church and once a year with our grandmother's church, to maximize our time there. One glorious year I also managed a week-long canoe camp. It continued to be special to me well into adulthood and is where I first learned to play music, though due to changes in my life (and changes in the camp, which stopped having single rooms for singles) I hadn't been back in some years.

My college roommate talked her church into getting me to lead an art journal workshop at her women's retreat. She also very kindly snagged the back bed around the corner to save for me. I've mostly stopped going with my church because now solo adults have to be in a bunk room of four or five, and that's just not an appealing option to me. I work and live alone and prefer one tiny, poky hole of my own to shut the door when I'm ready to sleep than a fancier cabin where I have to share. Sadly the camp has let their lodge with the smaller rooms fall into disrepair, so it has been a less attractive option to me lately.

Kathy's church took me in so very warmly, though, and made me very glad to be there. I had a ball making new friends and also exploring again the familiar and long loved terrain. Kathy and I walked over to the lake before dinner on Friday and did a little sketching.

of our park by the Memphis Zoo to make room for their overflow parking, it was good to see her cabin well cared for and used in a way that brings people joy.

One of my favorite places is the wildflower walk down the road a ways. There are a series of limestone cliffs with Dutchman's breeches and trillium growing on top and columbine dangling gracefully off the sides. I climbed up to check on the wildflowers and do a little sketching. The trillium were ENORMOUS.

The parts of the weekend you can't see from my sketchbook were the meals and discussions with fascinating women, sitting around and singing gospel songs on the porch in the afternoon (they actually wanted me to play banjo for them, which was great fun -- usually I just sit home and sing with it on my own), and a late night campfire out under a dome of stars.

On the art front, I enjoyed spreading the good news of the water brush, a nifty, self contained, easy to use tool that has changed my life. I can always have a tiny watercolor kit and brush ready to go in my purse, and I sketch so much more than I did before. Everyone dived in gamely and sketched with me (which can be an intimidating thing to do, since as a society we don't encourage people to draw after middle school). I think a few people may continue, which delights me. A lovely weekend.

I've been continuing to work on my creation triptych lately. It's taking me a lot more than six days for sure. I've got the sky piece done (that's first proof above, but it's quite close -- I just took more yellow out of the moon).

I've been printing a lot of blue skies lately.

Below is the final of the animal panel and a later draft of Adam and Eve for the third panel. I'm still edging blue back out of the figures. You never want to cut too much at once, since you can't put it back, and I'm hoping I didn't get too extreme last night. I printed blue today and will do the top layer to find out once that dries. This is definitely the slowest one, because the blue is the middle layer instead of the top one. With the other two panels, the only other layer is a light yellow/brown, so it's less of a crisis what happens in the figures with that. The blue is the top pattern layer. With Adam and Eve, the blue can bleed into the figures, so I'm having to really proof it, check it, carve some more, proof it again. Hopefully this last round will work, because I'm hanging the show at the seminary next week, and this is my centerpiece. I'll also hang the watercolor sketches of creation (five total, the number of Wednesday chapels back in September, not the days of creation...) that inspired this print series. It will be fun to have them shown together.

I'm not posting as much as I like to right now. Between the printmaking and some deadlines and seminary work and switching to a new (to me) computer which wasn't talking to the scanner well, I haven't been either sketching or scanning in what I do nearly as much as I like to. An ongoing crisis in my park, where so much of my painting happens, has also taken a ton of time lately. It's lovely to be able to schedule my own time instead of punch a clock. When something that important surfaces, I can take a lot of time to help. But it's all piled up to make me feel pretty frantic lately and to have less art creation time than I like.

I'm strongly looking forward to a return to Paris in a couple of weeks. It will be marvelous to have three weeks solo just to walk, paint (hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can bring home enough work for a show this fall), and look at art. I do love getting away. I always work intensively when I travel, but it's the best part of the work. The book keeping, matting, schlepping work around, and anything else is eliminated, and I just get to paint. So lovely.

I spent one stellar day in the MFA last week. It started with a harp demonstration in the musical instruments collection. Neat to see the ancient instruments played and the history explained. Of course I sketched. Both the demo and the audience.

Most of the rest of the day I just looked at art. The John Singer Sargent room blew me away. I'd seen small reproductions of the huge portrait of the four sisters, but walking into the room with it in person just blew me away. I stood there with tears in my eyes for a good while. If I'd had more time, I would have sketched more, but I wanted to see my main highlights (Sargent, two Constables, Inness and the Hudson River school, a couple of just lovely Pieter Claesz still lifes) thoroughly and deeply.

I did take a lunch break in the early afternoon and sketched a bit as a palette cleanser. I also wrote down several quotes that really grabbed me from the tags. The presentation in the museum was stellar. Such a pleasant, light, open place to see the art. I loved it. I could spend days there.

I did one more quick sketch at the end because, after illustration Revelation several years ago, I was intrigued by this Medieval madonna who was conflated with the pregnant madonna on the crescent moon in Revelation.

I've gotten to several dances while I've been in New England. It's such a hotbed for national bands and callers. I've seen Notorious and Lisa Greenleaf at local dances. Just amazing. These are the people we fly down south once a year for a special weekend. And the people have been incredibly welcoming. I've never walked into a dance hall not knowing a single dancer before. People have asked me to dance right at the start, kept asking me, talked to me at breaks, and truly made me welcome. I've even very grateful.

I got a banjo lesson from Larry Unger and a ride down to the waltz in Connecticut he was playing yesterday. He also let me draw his unbelievable banjo wall. For my lesson I got to play a 1903 White Layde, and then he let me noodle around on his 1870's fretless with gut strings. Both were a joy to play.

The waltz was three hours, so I did sat out a few and did a little sketching. Each half page is one tine's worth of sketching, so about 4 minutes each.

I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum yesterday. It's a lovely place with a gorgeous garden atrium and a fine collection of Sargents, who is one of my favorite painters. I had never seen his watercolors in person before, so that was a treat.

I was sad that both lighting and hanging of pieces precluded you from really seeing some of the art. A beguiling line of tiny Whistlers were way across a room, behind furniture and a rope, and in dim light. You just couldn't see them at all. Some of the Sargents were also high and dimly lit. I understand staying true to the spirit of the founder, but I wish they could improve the lighting a bit.

Also the second floor was completely closed for renovations, and the paintings don't go on alternate view until the day after I leave. So I missed the Dutch collection (what's left of it) among others. But overall it was a lovely place to wander around and see art.

One neat thing was that they have an artist in residence program. There was a really lovely exhibit of the latest one. She had done tiny, text heavy drawings of the musuem, and they fit into various small boxes. Lots of them had a library stamp on them for the date. Brilliant. Nicely in the urban sketcher style. I did a very quick sketch to remind myself of the overall feel.