Sketches in European Trains and Cafes

When traveling no matter how full my days are with museum and gallery hoping, I know I am going to be inspired to create.  I always travel with at least one semi-luxury art supply.  My item of choice in Europe was a brush tip brown ink pen. I then indulged in beautiful paper in fine stationary stores from The Hague, Paris, and Stockholm. The paper was expensive, as far as paper goes, but a piece of paper and a cup of coffee and a snack was always cheaper than a full meal and made me happier.

I loved the handmade paper. There was something magical about using paper made the same way it had been made for centuries for my simple sketches.  Train rides were always over much too quickly for me, I am surprised I never missed my stop.

*These works were all created between visits to European museums in 2016.

The Source of the famous Lily Pads

 

While I was down in Saussignac, South France, for the Mike Snow Art Retreat, we drove down to the lily pad nursery, Jardin des Nenuphars, in Le-temple-sur-lot. This is  where Monet was said to get his famous lily for his gorgeous gardens. Latour- Marliac was a lawyer and horticulturist who started the nursery in 1885. He and Monet met in 1889 at the Exposition Universalle in Paris, where Marliac was displaying his hybrid water lilies.  It was the wrong time of year, or the wrong time of day, and the gardens were closed, and there weren’t many lilies to be seen, but it was gorgeous non-the-less. I loved being in a small village where they actually let me try to speak my limited French.