Paris… and priorities

I had the great pleasure of spending five days in the astonishingly beautiful city of Paris last week – hence the lack of my usual weekly post. As much as part of me wanted to spend my days painting and sketching (and I did travel with all the necessary bits and bobs to spend my days doing just that) this was a family holiday; and family comes first. As much as I find my own artistic efforts endlessly entertaining – as often as not for all the wrong reasons – I can’t hold it against my loved ones for not sharing quite the same level of enthusiasm!

It was nevertheless a wonderfully rich visual extravaganza, a real feast for the eyes, heart and soul. This was my first visit in over fifteen years and I’d forgotten quite how beautiful Paris is, even when it’s grey and overcast as it was for most of our time there. Accepting that I wasn’t going to get much sketching done, I was quite prolific with my camera, trying to capture as much as I could that I might bring back to the studio. It will take me a while to sort through all of the photos, and decide what I might be able to work up into a painting but hopefully, I’ll be able to do some Parisian paintings in the not too distant future.

We traveled by Eurostar and, on the return journey, the sun began to shine and really brought the rolling French countryside to life. Holding my phone up against the window I took lots of random photos as we hurtled along, accepting that most of them would be discarded at a later date but hoping I might catch the odd view that might be of interest. With time pushed to spend anytime painting recently, I’ve so far only managed to do this one painting on a quarter sheet:

The sat nav on my phone tells me that this is a view towards Borre, somewhere between Lille and Calais. After a few weeks away from my paints, it felt great just to be dashing something down and, considering my absence, and that I was just looking at a photo on my phone, I was quite pleased with this as a notation.

I know that I’m unlikely to be able to eke out much more time painting for a short while so I might try a few more of these quick ‘views from a speeding train’ just to keep my hand in!

I’m also aware that with the nights drawing in, I’m going to be even more pushed for time than usual to squeeze my painting in. In an effort to address this, I’m thinking of investing in a specialist ‘daylight light’. I’ve seen a few on the market but, if anyone has any experience of these and any recommendations, I’d really like to hear from you before I make a decision.