Ooh-la-la! I'm "virtually" in PARIS!!!!

Bill Guffey has a blog called The Virtual Paintout and on it he posts a map of a city of his chosing and asks us all to visit that city virtually by touring it through an interactive map by Google Earth that provides street views. You can walk around the city and look at things.

For the month of May Bill has chosen Paris. I wanted to find and quaint little street with bakeries and cafes and shops on it to paint. Cut I couldn't - all I could find were super busy streets and the Eiffel Tower - which was cool but painting that would be too predictable. So I found a tour site www.parisnotes.com and they have a page called hidden paris that gives info on all sorts of off the beaten track or different info. They reccomended going to a place called Les Petits Mitrons, which is a lovely bakery. So I hunted up and down Rue Lepic until I found it.

This is a rouch sketch of the block that Les Petits Mitrons is on. The perspective is sort of screwy but I kind of like it. This is the start of the sketch for the next block which has all sorts of wonderful shops on it. Once again the perspective is odd but...

This block isn't finished yet. I'm fooling with my sketch book again. Pulling out pages and using them to expand what I have there and I'm going to need to add some more on the right to get a market in on this block. There is a cafe across the street on a corner that I want to draw and down the block the other way is a really nice flower maket/gardening shop as well as a store that sells roses. I'd like to sketch those as well.

I'd also like to try and find a particular statue on Notre Dame Cathedral - I'll have to see if I can and if I do find it, I want to sketch that. And last I want to sketch a restaurant that Renoir and Monet used to go to and sketch at on Isle Chatou near the Seine called Maison Fornaise on Rue du Bac. I searched and searched for it and finally found it and along with that I found a garden sort of like what I was hoping to find as well.

Once I get the rough sketches done I want to transfer them to heavier paper and add colour to them. Not sure how they will look but I want to give it a try.