Vive la France!Charles-François Lebœuf, Eurydice Mourante

Pierre Legros, L'Automne

View of the cat at my feet, cafe on the Mediterranean.

View of Notre Dame from the banks of the Seine.

I've been a little absent from the interwebs of late, but for a very good reason: I just went on an amazing trip to France with my husband! A friend of ours currently has an address in the City of Lights and she and her boyfriend generously offered us an air-mattress, maps, milk & cookies and their company during our visit. Of course, when traveling things don't always go according to plan, which is part of the adventure. My husband and I had grand plans for doing lots of artwork on this trip. We packed sketchbooks, pencil cases, new watercolor moleskin pads, palettes and brushes. And...we barely used any of it! It was our first trip to Europe, and we definitely underestimated how tiring it would be.

After some delays (thanks, American Airlines!) we got to Paris, and got settled in at my friends' place (i.e. took up all the space in their studio apartment). We toured the city by boat ride on the Seine, saw the Eiffel Tower up close, went to the Louvre, spent a day at Versailles, wandered the Marais and visited Notre Dame over four days. Then we took a three hour train ride to Marseille, where we stayed at a little B & B on the outskirts of the city. We took it easy the first day there; then we went into the city and trekked up to the highest point (another Notre Dame) for a 360º view; the next day we hiked the calanques (large limestone fjord-like cliffs) and took a dip in the Mediterranean; then we trained it back to Paris. In Paris once again we went to the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre a second time (to sketch, finally!), saw Les Halles, did some shopping, went to Montmartre and saw Sacre Couer, grabbed macarons at the oldest Ladurée, strolled the Marais again, had a picnic on the Seine, went to a British pub and saw a real, live French bar fight, all in another four days in Paris.

In conclusion, unseasoned travelers that we are, we had a lot to learn about traveling Europe, and learn we did! For example:

• every French girl owns at least one striped shirt and loves wearing it.
• everyone does walk around carrying baguettes.
• men do say "ooh-la-la" on the street.
• most Parisiennes do have an effortless sense of style...
• and even their graffiti is neat.
• an urban public transport system actually can run on time! (and now a big F-U to the MTA)
• yes, you actually do need to make reservations for dinner before your trip...every interesting restaurant is booked every night...
• however, standard brasseries and bistros may not be exciting, but they know how to cook food well.
• unsurprisingly, New York is considered very cool...
• surprisingly, comic books and super-heroes are, too.
• the French love terrible pop music.
• everyone is friendly and helpful, as long as you are polite, too...weird, huh?

Now, back to Brooklyn living, which really is pretty cool.

Shop Your Closet!I love to shop for clothes (as long as it's not too crowded!) but since I need to save money for bigger and better things, I'm going to have to shop my closet for a while. Which is okay, because I have a lot of clothes I really do love. Above are a few sketches of my favorite outfits.

The left ensemble is an outfit I recently got from Uniqlo and I wore it out for my birthday this year. It was my first time at Uniqlo and I loved it! I got an awesome tribal printed tunic with ruched sides and semi-shiny black leggings with gold zippers at the ankle. I wore beautiful antique gold and black gem earrings by La Vie Parisienne and a chunky emerald green gem and gold chain necklace sold by Guru at the Brooklyn Flea. I used my grey coach wristlet (a gift from my sister-in-law) which is a great bag because it goes with everything I wear, practically. And maybe my favorite part of the whole outfit was my MaryRoks shoes by Jeffrey Campbell in grey suede! Love them!
The center outfit is a lot simpler, but super cute and comfy. The top is a really interesting ruffled bubble tank from Victoria's Secret (on sale, of course) and the bottom is a acid wash grey denim mini from Uniqlo. I love the contrast of the really feminine top with the slightly edgier skirt. The top is great too because it has a built in bra– ladies, you know you love that. I wore this with my Natural Comfort gold platform sandals I got a few years ago, and another great pair of antique gold earrings from La Vie Parisienne.
The right look is an outfit I got from Forever 21 a couple seasons back. I loved the top the minute I saw it because the stripes and colors really reminded me of the beach. I think it also reminds me of one of my mother's tops from when I was a kid. I also love the back because it has a V neck, which shows off the tattoo on my back, and a there's little sliver that shows a peak of the lower back, which is pretty hot. The shorts are standard dark denim bermudas, which are great because they're classic and I'm not really one for short-shorts (on me, anyway!). I usually wear white lattice-work style earrings with this outfit to complete the beachy look.

Sketch Cards!

I did these 2.5" x 3.5" sketch cards with brush pens and Copic markers at King Con to keep busy and they were a lot of fun. I'll definitely be doing more at MoCCA and having them for sale. Which characters should I do next?

KING CON 2009!King Con was this past weekend at the Brooklyn Lyceum in Park Slope, and it was awesome! The husband and I had a great time seeing old friends and meeting new people. It kind of reminded me of how MoCCA felt the first year or two, which was nice. We sold a few comics, buttons and some prints, but the extra fun part was doing commissioned sketches. I did one of an Indian dancer, inspired by the Indian-themed paintings in my portfolio, and one of the Marvel character Modok (a weird ugly giant-headed flying machine with tiny arms and legs), which was fun since I never draw things like that. The person who commissioned the dancer was kind enough to send me a photo and scan of the drawing:

I also did some fun small trading card-style color sketches, which I'll post later. Hope there's going to be another King Con next year!

Whoa! Old Sketchbook!

I recently found an old moleskine that I used in my last year or two of school. Most of the time I am so focused on being able to make new pictures that I rarely look at anything old. It's definitely a strange experience. I'm not too happy with the bar sketches, (my friends probably agree!) but it's okay, I guess. I do like Prospect Park, and my old apartment view from the fire escape. Anyway, kind of hard to put old stuff up here, but at the same time it's kind of fun for a change.