Monday, 21 December 2015

A great year with the Urban Sketchers Part 2 - Paris

From Hong Kong I flew into Paris. I have some wonderful relatives on my sister's side I was able to meet up with, along with some of the Paris urban sketchers and friends from the Sketchbook Skool community.

Paris at the end of March was still very cold so sketching was a bit of a challenge on a very windy day but I had a lovely lunch with Cassandra, Lavinia, Tula and Marissa. You can see the door I sketched in the background of the photo.
L'observatoire, Meudon, Paris.

I went to Meudon in the suburbs of Paris and visited the beautiful observatory, which I sketched with Jean-Paul until we decided it just wasn't fun to be in the cold any more. Such an elegant building.














It was wonderful to catch up with the delightful Jean-Christophe for lunch on a rather rainy day. His gift for story-telling in text and pictures is legendary.









Pencil and watercolour studies of the fascinating eglise Saint Laurent, Paris

I was staying near Gare Du Nord and found a very old and architecturally eclectic church to sketch until it was time to meet up with Natalie and Emmanuel.

I headed off to England for a few weeks (see part 3) then returned with my daughter for a few more days in Paris - in much more friendly weather :-)

We did a lot of walking and exploring and had a fantastic time, though I didn't manage to sketch Notre Dame. Maybe next time.



We spent a very enjoyable morning at the gardens of the Musee de Rodin, where I loved seeing The Kiss again. I drew it as an assignment while at school, along with a number of other very famous sculptures, which seem like old friends whenever I come across them as a consequence. It was great to see our Kiwi friends Alexander and Linda while we were there. I did a very quick sketch of The Thinker and we headed off on our next expedition.
Peta's saw her first  carouselle in Paris when she was 2 years old and simply adored them. This one's a beauty. So is she :-)

I left Peta in Paris to head back to Cambridge and university and I returned to Hong Kong, then home.








 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Jane. Lovely blog, and very interesting about the Urban Sketchers, first time I've heard of them... I love watercolor as well, and do some collage as well.

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    1. The Urban Sketchers organisation is a world-wide non profit group, aimed at sketching the world and sharing the sketches. There is a central blog and a facebook group, and other blogs and facebook groups for chapters in most countries, and many cities in the world. It's a fantastic organisation. There is an annual symposium, which was in Singapore last year and will be in Manchester in July this year. Hundreds of sketchers in the one location - loads of fun :-)

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