Course Description

Walking through the streets of Paris can take you through many moods. When I wake up in Paris I start every morning walking through the streets as the shop keepers are lifting the grates from the windows, stacking the fruit, putting ice out for the fresh fish and the trucks are in the middle of the street unloading produce and fish. The cafes are still quiet but open so you can take it all in with your coffee.

I like to walk and look at how the light is different. I like to spy little courtyards and snap pictures of the storefronts open or shuttered. Everything that delights me. I will walk from the Right Bank over a bridge to the Left Bank and back again stopping only for a sandwich to eat on a bench and maybe a shop or two for provisions. When I arrive back at my atelier I pour a glass of wine and review my snapshots for the day. I may munch on some cheese or a hardboiled egg. I turn on the jazz and start sketching.

This course is about savoring your surrounding world. It is about nurturing your creativity. It is about spying beauty. No special training in drawing or painting is necessary. I will guide you through the streets of Paris with exercises that build up to a Parisienne Storefront painting. This course will prepare you for a practice of spying beauty wherever you may go. Join me in this series and discover how to capture your memories on paper.

Techniques Taught

• How to assemble a studio in a pouch
• How to create a makeshift studio when you travel
• Using your mobile telephone as a camera for framing snapshots of potential paintings
• Walking the streets and what to look for
• Work on paper
• Work in watercolor, gouache, graphite, ink, charcoal, color pencil & China marker
• Creating a color palette
• Create whimsical paintings of storefronts
• Create abstract paintings from shuttered up storefronts
• Spying Beauty in the architecture of a city