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.

A few favourites from Provence and a new YouTube video

Posted: July 17, 2024 | Author: Shari Blaukopf | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fontaine de vaucluse, ink and watercolour, provence, sketch, sketchbook, waterwheel | 11 Comments

I’ve slowly been scanning sketches from my recent teaching trip in Provence and I’ll be posting more of them soon. Here are a few from my favourite spots.

ST PAUL DE MAUSOLE: I visited St. Paul de Mausole for the first time in 2018, when I was teaching my very first workshop with French Escapade. I remember how moving it was to enter the room where Van Gogh spent a year of confinement, look out at the garden from his bedroom window, see the olive trees that he painted, and be surrounded by the landscapes that inspired “Starry Night“, “The Irises“, “Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape” and many other paintings.

On this visit, we all did a series of small sketches that represented the place for us. I sketched the lavender fields and the monastery building where the hospital was located, a few of the Romanesque arches in the cloister, some iris leaves (even though they had finished blooming) and a few coquelicots in the garden. It was a very hot day when we visited, and there wasn’t much shade, but everyone sketched something interesting that morning, despite the heat. To note: the gardens — both outside and in the cloister — are much less well tended than they were six years ago. I’m not sure why that is. A lack of staff due to the pandemic, perhaps?

FONTAINE DE VAUCLUSE: On my day off between two teaching weeks, I had a bit of time to sketch on my own. I sat on a bench near the river and sketched the bridge, the waterwheel and the narrow village buildings. At one point, when I looked up from my sketchbook, there were two fisherman in hip waders standing on the landing near the Sorgue river. I was hoping to capture both of them but by the time I started to draw the first one, they were gone. Sketching in that spot by the river is always a pleasure. There’s a bench in the shade and a fountain so I can fill my painting cup. The temperature in the village is always cooler than the surrounding towns because of that cold spring water, and the river is an unearthly green due to the clear spring water and the bright water parsnip that grows in it. If you want to see how I painted this scene, have a look at my YouTube channel. I just posted a video of it there.