Paris- Day 1 Arrival

Waiting at the Train Station

Gard d'Lyon

Gard d'Lyon

Today we arrived in the city of love... on Valentines day... I got to ride the train for the very first time!  It was so much fun and unlike the trains in the US, the trains over in Europe go extremely fast!!!!

Streets of Paris

In about 3 hours we traveled all the way from Avignon to Paris.  We arrived at Gard d'Lyon which is one of the main stations there.  The architecture was so beautiful!  The clock tower really reminded me of Big Ben in London.  We walked about 30 minuets from the station to our hotel. It really was a hike! Along the way we saw such beautiful things.  My favorite was that of a statue of a lady and a child that was located along the Sein.  I wish I knew what it was called!  Hopefully I can look it up.  
My day was made though when I was able to send Ken a video message for Valentines day.  Since he's been gone, neither of us have been able to see each other or hear each others voices so I was really happy that he could hear my voice on such a special day.  I even was able to facebook message him!  Hopefully I'll be able to hear his voice soon and see his face.
Everyone keeps telling me that Paris is a night city.  I'm not sure how I feel about that: I generally don't go out at night.  Hopefully I'll find a group of people to go do things with.  I probably should head to bed soon because tomorrow is going to be a busy day.  We are going to the Louvre and the Mussé d'Orsay.  So excited!!!

 

Such a beautiful Statue!

Aix-en-Provence

The first thing we did when we arrived was march to the museum.  We ran to keep up with our professor who walks incredibly fast.  We even arrived at the museum early so that gave us a chance to walk around and explore a little before the museum.  We found an art store and loaded up on supplies for our classes.  I was so excited to pick up some highlighters so I could experiment with them with my watercolors.  I had been wanting to do so ever since we went to Angolême and I heard about an artist who combined them and white ink and their work was so beautiful!  We also stopped by to pick up things to keep us warm because it was COLD.  I mean REALLY COLD.  There were huge icicles forming on all the water fountains and any exposed skin actually hurt from the cold.

We went to the museum and I actually enjoyed it.  It was a lot better than the one at St. Remy.  Even though nothing was in English, it was still beautiful to look at.  My favorite part was the statues.  There was one in particular that I loved called "Leon Pilet."  The way her dress was carved was simply breath taking.  Right behind the gallery was an actual pomegranate tree.  I had never seen a pomegranate tree before so I found that really cool, especially since it was still covered in fruit!

The Sweet Shop Mrs. Christoph took us to

Riding the French Bus With Sarah

This is where Sarah, Mrs. Christoph and I got lost

After the museum, Sarah and I attempted to follow our professor to the tapestry museum, but he walked so fast!  We figured it would be a safe bet to follow his wife there because we thought he would wait for her... but he didn't.  The three of us set out to find the museum ourselves.  We followed the map and went to the office of tourism who told us to get on the #7 bus and that it would take us to the museum.  Since we didn't have any change on us, we went to a sweet shop to try and get change for the bus fair.  Mrs. Christoph insisted on buying us sweets.  The reason we call her Mrs. Christoph is we didn't hear her name when our professor introduced her to us and we have no earthly idea how to pronounce their last name.  So Mrs. Christoph it is.  She is so nice!  We boarded the bus and it was quite the experience.  So similar yet completely different from the buses in the US.

We got off at the stop that the office of tourism told us to get off at and we came to one conclusion: The Tapestry museum that was labeled on our maps was not the Tapestry museum.  It was some guys museum that began with an M.  The lady who worked there kept insisting that we must be French Canadian because there was a group of French Canadian students who came through there earlier- even thought we kept telling here that we were not French Canadian but were in fact American.

By this time we had pretty much  given up on finding the museum and were focused on finding our way back to where the bus was.  Even though we missed the museum, we really enjoyed getting to know Mrs. Christoph and determined that she is awesome.  Extremely awesome. 

Some strange guy in a bunny suit

Unfortunately our good day came to a crummy end.  Someone broke into the bus while we were out and stole several computers- including one of the professor's computers with all her lesson plans on it.  We ended the day at the police station reporting the stolen things.  One thing about french law is that thefts can not be charged unless the stolen items are actually found on their person, so once something is stolen it's gone for good.  This is one of the many things that I have come to have new appreciation for in America

Stuff I'm doing in Travel portfolio

My art supplies still aren't here!  Such a bummer!  I was really looking forward to continue practicing the technique that I started learning last quarter.  It's a variation of CF Payne's technique.  

This has absolutely nothing
to do with anything other than
my professor  had it today in class
and I found it hilarious.
"Sugar Daddy"

1. Color pencils are used to do an under drawing.  Nothing too rendered but basic lights and darks.

2. Spray fixative is applied to prevent the pencil from smudging

3. A mixture of matte media and water are applied over the pencil to keep the lines fresh and seal the color pencil.

4. LET DRY- Very important otherwise everything will get all messed up.  Dry time is critical.

5. Thin acrylic washes are applied to give base colors in areas- like flesh tone.

6. Watercolor is applied and rendered like a finish piece.

7. Color pencils are used to render the picture even further.

8. Mineral sprites are applied.  They have such an interesting reaction to the watercolor that's hard to describe.  It really makes a difference.

9. Go back into the piece and bring out the details with acrylic washes and colored pencils.

Sooooo... I guess that will have to wait and I'll post examples in a later post when my supplies actually get here.  

But any who, for my travel portfolio class, in lack of my supplies, I was able to focus on my watercolor techniques.  I haven't ever really worked with just water color before (successfully) and I was quite pleased on how the water turned out.  This isn't really the best picture of it, so I'll try to upload a better one later.

Snow!

Just another beautiful day in Lacoste!  It snowed today so I thought I would post some pictures.

Angolême

   Drama here, drama there,  drama drama everywhere!  That's the best way to describe the time I spent in Angolême.  We drove 12+ hours from Lacoste on a bus to get here.  When we arrived the first time at our "villas," we were shocked.   The "villas" we stayed in were not at all what we were expecting.  When you hear the word villa, you expect something large and grand right?  In fact, the word itself means a large country house of Roman times, having an estate and consisting of farm and residential buildings arranged around a courtyard.  I do believe several people have coined the term "camp hell."  Instead of something grand (at all), we stayed in these little, tiny, dirty, houses in the middle of nowhere.  It literally looked like it could be the perfect setting for a bad horror movie.

We came for the 39th annual comic festival.  Basically it's the french version of comic con, or so I've been told.  What I loved about the city was the gorgeous wall murals.  Technically they were graffiti, but not what you would expect.  One thing that I find so nice for a change is that art and artist are actually respected over here.

 When the bus would drop us off each day, it would drop us off at the very bottom.  That first day we realized just how steep the climb would be.  Almost a 45 degree slope!  I am for sure getting my exercise on this trip!  Each day we had to make this climb because the rest of the festival was at the top. 

Our first day in Angolême was a dreary one.  We went to the comic book museum which was interesting.  I got so excited when I saw some of the books in German because I could actually read them, then was thankful that a good majority of the books there were in English so I could read them as well.  Afterwards we just walked around the city trying to see what there was to see.  My focus was mostly on finding a wifi spot so I could leave a message to Ken.  My friends and I found a nice little cafe and we enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate while drawing and checking in on the world.

 The next day was definitely not the best day ever...  The night before, one of my roommates was sick so the rest of us stayed up all night with her making sure she was ok.  Because of this, another one of my roommates got so incredibly sick that she had to be taken to the hospital.  Needless to say, I've had better days.  Other than that, I explored the festival- finding all kinds of amazing art.  Finally the sun came out and we were able to appreciate the city so much more.  And that night I took care of my other roommate after she came back because she still was really sick.

Our last day was probably the best day I had there.  My friend Sarah and I went to an artist lecture for the author of the book Mause.  It was not something I was expecting.  I did not know that he used to be an underground comic artist and I was not expecting to see that particular kind of "art."  We felt so bad when we left though because as we were about to stand up and leave, he made the comment, "What? Is my life so boring? Should I change topics?" because we weren't the only ones trying to leave.  So we stayed for an extra 10-25 mins until we couldn't wait anymore if we wanted to catch the bus back to Lacoste.  I was so happy to be able to pick up the first book in the french series "Le Balledt de Yaya."  It's such a cute series about a little girl and boy in Shanghai during WWII.  I can't wait to finish reading it!  Even thought it's in french, I can still understand everything that happens because it is so well written.  Then we raced back to the bus for our 12 hour ride back to Lacoste.

Me by the end of the trip

The Cool Mosaic Guy

Today we traveled to another village to visit this guy who makes mosaic tables for a living.  He was probably one of the coolest people I have ever met.  The very first table he ever sold was to U2.  Talk about a big break!  He has sold his work to many celebraties and even to Carnegie Hall!  Although after bragging about it on his website he had to take it down because he would have to pay around $400 a month to use their name because it's trademarked.

The mosaic man also had one of the most interesting historical collections I've ever seen and everything that he has he has found in the area.  Everything from ancient coins, to artifacts, to bones.  He even has found skeletons in his walls!  Some of his walls are 3 meters think because they used to be a part of the castel wall.  I told you that pretty much every town in France has a castel didn't I?  When people would die they would either burry them in the castel wall to make them stronger or they would burry them as close as they could to the church: even inside the church walls.

Cannon Ball Mold

It turns out that the town was one spared from the black plague that swept across Europe, killing millions. The reason they were spared?  Horse sweat.  The flees that carried the plague didn't like horse sweet and because the town was spared was that they smelled like horse sweat.  The town mainly sold horses so everyone had one and they would spend all day in the barns and come in smelling like them causing the flees to, well, flee.  It's amazing that if they had good hygiene they all would have died.

Glanum and St. Rémy

Today we traveled to the ancient ruins of Glanum, an ancient Roman city built over 2,000 years ago!  We explored the ruins.  I was in complete disbelief of the fact that they were so technologically advanced back then!  The city had a functioning sewer, hot running water, and even indoor plumbing!  These are things that even places today don't have access to.  I can't believe that the romans were more advanced than some places are still today: it just blows my mind.  Of course there was a giant mountain to climb and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to climb it.  The view was, of course, spectacular.  You could see all of St. Rémy and the hospital that Vincent Van Gogh was hospitalized after cutting off his ear.  We were supposed to be able to take a tour of it, but it was closed.

Unfortunately, literally five minuets after getting off the bus, our professor twisted his ankle so badly that he had to go to the hospital.  This ment that all 40 of us were on our own to explore the city for five hours and find the sites that we were supposed to be learning about.   No one else on the trip had any idea where we were supposed to be going and or even what the name of the museum was.  So we wandered aimlessly around the city trying to find out where it was because we knew which museums were NOT the right ones. It was quite an entertaining experience... minus our professor getting hurt. On our quest to find the museum some of us stopped in an old roman catholic church.  The architecture was so beautiful!  I really love stained glass, and there was a lot of it.  Stain glass has a heavy influence on my art style.  After we properly photographed the church we finally ran into someone who knew where we were supposed to be going.  I feel like I would have been able to get a lot more out of the museum if it was in english instead of french.

Apparently it's where's
Charlie in France...

Some other things happend afterwards that I would rather not talk about, but we made it to the bus and headed back to Lacoste.  It was such a wonderful trip and I shall remember it forever.