Friday, August 22, 2008

Paris 2008 Travel Memoir

Paris Street Scene

Giverncy Stream


Senior Citizens dancing on Seine River tour boat


Bakery in the Town of Versailles

Above are a few watercolor paintings inspired by our Paris 2008 trip. All sketches & watercolor paintings are on flickr as of today, but I still have tons of photos, which I will post as time permits.

Usually I keep my posts pretty short, because I figure people want to see the art pieces, but this time I'm sharing the plan, too. The blog gives me a place to put down what I have rattling around in my head & get it organized. I'd love to hear comments, tips, etc. as this is my 1st travel memoir project. I already have a few ideas for the next trip - like slow down & paint more.

So here's the plan or the scoop as I would say to Moby. Even though we were only in & around Paris for 4 days(added a day due to hubby's work), I wanted to take full advantage creatively of the experience.


Week before we left, I did a week of prep to get the lay of the land as my Dad would say. I wanted to know where we wanted to go, how to get there, when things were open, etc. hit the ground running so to speak. I mean 4 days is not a long time to figure out someplace you have never been. Being this well prepared, allows Art & I the ability to just meander & be spontaneous, which we did quite a bit of that.

This preparation involved sketching some of the sites from photos, thereby getting me familiar with shapes, textures of Paris. To top it off, I made a pledge to myself to sketch & watercolor paint every time I stopped, for a meal, had to wait, & at each sight to find something different to sketch. The 1st day quick sketching with pen & ink worked out OK as I was on my own, but the 2nd day it just didn't work as Art was with me & we just had a great time being together. So I photoed everything I could possibly could want to sketch & Art in front of the sites(he was my artist in the photos). In the evenings, I continued to immerse myself in the french culture, while Art was working - I journaled, organized my stuff collected, flipped through my sketches for the day, watched TV, & planned the next day.


As soon as we got back from the trip, I have worked to create the watercolor paintings inspired by our Paris trip. Just finished those yesterday, I've uploaded all of the Paris Trip watercolor paintings & a few more trip photos on my flickr so check them out.



Next, I'm going to start working on the Paris Art Journal including things I picked up at each place and the journaling I did while I was there.

Finally, I want to put the sketches, watercolor paintings, ,journaling, art journal, & photos all together like a travel memoir. I'm thinking of organizing the travel memoir by day or each place visited. It is going to end up a small book, but I will publish it here & on my flickr as each section is completed. Depending on how big it gets, I hope not too big, I'll publish the finished book here or as a flickr set. I'm such a newbie to blogging that I haven't learned all I need to know to do it all here. In the meantime, I use the blog to direct you to the flickr and flickr to direct to blog. Eventually, I see flickr as mostly photos, we'll see how it goes.

Now I know this is a lot to do, but I am on a quest to really experience as much of life creatively as possible. The actual painting, sketching & creating is the priority, not to mention, I want to improve my writing, but that's a whole other story. Besides now that I have written it down & said it here, I'll have to keep to it, right.

Anyway, our next planned big trip is to China in mid-October so I have to be finished by then. 7-days of Chinese culture & images will leave no room for anything else. I'm looking forward to enjoying & playing with such different Chinese shapes, textures, colors,etc., what fun life is!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Ormond by the Sea Cottage


Our Ormond by the Sea cottage is for rent or home exchange, you can see more photos on my flickr under homes & cottages or contact me at arparra2@yahoo.com. Enjoy!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Home From Paris


We had a wonderful time in Paris & both of us are ready to move there. We enjoyed the walking, cafes & of course, the Bakerys. Art was in heaven with all the fresh pasteries and bread. I've been working hard on my Paris Sketchbook, which I will soon post when done. I've uploaded some of the photos, I took in Europe on my Flickr, which you can access at the right side of this blog. I'll share more of the trip, including my favorites as soon as I get more organized.