Travel sketches from Provence

I’m still playing catch up from my trip to France, but I finally had some time to scan the sketches that I did during my first teaching week. When I look at these, they represent what I love best about travel sketching: capturing both the near and the far, recording city and village scenes, observing people, and being present with all of my senses so that when I look back through my books months or years later, much of what I experienced comes back to me. All of these are in one of my favourite sketchbooks: the square format Handbook Watercolour Journal.

This first one was a quick drawing I did from an amazing picnic spot with a view across vineyards with hills in the distance. I only had a few minutes to sketch so I did the ink on location and added the colour later from memory (bright green rows of grapes, dark hedges dividing the fields, and some rolling purple hills in the distance).

In that same small town, but earlier in the day, we sketched a view up a quiet street. When you spend a few hours sitting in a place, you have a chance to observe details that you might not necessarily notice during a shorter visit. Three things stick in my mind from that spot: the dozens of swifts nesting under the eaves of the houses, the man with the shock of white hair trimming his vines (he’s a painter too), and the live piano music coming from a window just above us.

In France, Fête de la Musique is on June 21st. Almost everyone in my group sketched the saxophone player in the market that day. He was a funny guy. He knew we were all drawing him but he never acknowledged us with so much as a glance in our direction. He played along to some recorded music (jazz and other stuff too) coming out of a speaker below his chair. Occasionally he would put his sax down to take a few puffs of his Gitanes while the recorded music continued. At the end of his performance, he stood up, piled everything into his wheelchair and pushed it all away.

The plane trees shade the roundabout in the centre of Fontaine de Vaucluse. They make it extremely pleasant to sketch there, no matter how hot the day gets.

I love sketching people when I travel. I’m not that great at it so I practice a lot, just hoping to capture a distinctive gesture or the right slope of the shoulders or the angle of a head. These are done directly in ink, and even though that may seem intimidating to do, I just go over the lines if they need correcting.

We had rain on our market day in Ile-sur-la-Sorgue, and it seems that many of the farmers opted out of setting up in the downpour. Fortunately I had a great view of this lavender vendor from my dryish spot under a big awning at a café. He spent most of his time pacing back and forth and shouting into his phone but when he finally stopped I was able to capture him. If you look carefully you can see the pencil lines from an earlier attempt to draw him.

There are more of my sketches from France, from this year and other years, on my website. If you are interested, have a look here.