High Contrast Grey.

The weather of Bretagne. I am going to miss this sky.

The Eiffel Tower seen from Centre Pompidou.

Thanksgiving in Rennes under a dense fog.

I’m in France.
Namely the town of Rennes in the Britany region.
I’m not quite sure what to say about this place. The task of even starting the documenting of it on here was daunting with just how much there is everywhere that I would like to comment on, to share and express.
The city is gorgeous, with different sections seeming to represent completely different eras, but yet allowing all the different sections to bleed into one another.

The absinthe bar has been finished…

Although I still need to ink in the hinge on the window. (shhh…)

Out of all the paintings that I had hanging in the show, I was surprised this one wasn’t the one that sold, but it is my latest so I still feel the most attached to it..

I sold this painting at the show for the Artist’s Collective last night. The woman who bought it was in my architectural art history class last semester and told me it reminded her of Italy, which she visited this winter.

I celebrated with going out to see Jason Webley play his accordion, which perhaps was a bit detrimental to finishing my French homeworks… but oh well. It is going to be a crazy weekend this weekend with all the homework I will have.

Two days of work, although most of the detail flattens out into the dark and the dark doesn’t show any of its gradual changes… artist nitpicks.

It seems to be coming along quicker than the last acrylic painting that I did. Which of course is always the fact with working on art. Well until the curve has been accomplished and then insert all the new ideas and techniques to slow it back down. ..The air here is really dry and my paints keep drying up quite fast no matter what I mix into them, so I have been experimenting with having the lid off of my kettle as I have the burner on low so that it will evaporate and add water to the air. It seems to be working, but it could all just be in my head.

The more I work on this with all the blinds closed the more that I forget that there is snow everywhere outside and I almost trick myself into thinking that it might be nice out. I have been playing my music in the living room while painting and I can’t tell if the person who lives above me is stomping because they want the music turned down, or if they are just really not graceful or light of step, or if they just weigh a lot and it is unavoidable. Meh..

Working more on my Eugene Atget painting. Slowly adding layer upon layer and figuring out how to work with acrylics finally. If only the air here wasn’t so dry that as I wait for my thin layer to dry that the mixed paint as well dries. I’ve been experimenting with acrylic medium as well, but I think I should build up more of the layers first. Perhaps make it so that one can’t see the grid marks through the paint anymore.

It is due in a week now, as well as another painting of a still life that has been set up in the classroom that I have been avoiding doing.. I think that I will be spending my weekend at the University.

It would have been nice if University housing had provided a larger table in the apartment.. Hell, maybe even something that was a table and not just a counter connected to the wall with nothing below it.

Drinking wine all afternoon working on my final for my summer painting class.

An intersection in Paris in 1910 referenced and provided by Eugene Atget.

I still need to sketch in the other side before continuing the undercoat, but I was getting impatient and wanted some definition to all the lines I have been putting onto the canvas.

14th and 42nd.

Finally finished after months of working.

The bus was 50 minutes late and I just walked the way home. By the time it came I had already reached the university and decided to just walk the rest of the way.

I found a tagged no parking sign in the process. Water damaged and broken, soon to be decorating my wall.

The city is always more beautiful at night.

The final hurdle..

I still don’t know what to put in the advertising mural above the entrance to the hotel. And I need to come across some pretty fabric/paper for the final rugs.

Plus, of course, all the minute ink details still left to do…

I’ve been working more and more on my new painting. Its gotten to the point where I only have the color purple left on my saucer since I’ve only been working at cafés and don’t have the ability to add more colors when I finish one off.. So to fix this problem of stagnation I have begun inking.

I’m finding more hangouts and continuing my horrible diet of tea and baked goods. This is going well as I am reading Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell. Living off small portions of bread.. I am as well trying to track down where the artsy alternative kids hangout (somewhat like Bauhaus on Capitol Hill) and have been having lots of confusing results. The café that I thought was ‘the one’ the other day was today filled with old people, transients, and a punk rock kid sewing his clothes back together. It seems promising still. Luckily its not too far from the Senior Center where my salsa class is so, when I have to kill three hours before class I can go there.

I woke up with Piano Man by Billy Joel stuck in my head. Its still stuck at the end of the day… I really don’t know why.

I spent the day working on my new painting. Since my classes aren’t really filling up my schedule too much I thought I’d try working on my artwork more. Also hoping to get this done for when I go to Seattle on the 19th.

My ruler is too short.

I went café hopping today while working on this. Needed to get out of the apartment. I kept getting complements today. It was nice.

It seems that today was the artwalk in Missoula, but I didn’t really know what was going on. I didn’t really want to do the whole artwalk thing though because I had both my bags and didn’t want to be wandering through crowded areas with that much ‘junk in my trunk.’ Instead I drank too much tea (well, lots of tea, can’t really admit to it being too much) and worked on my painting. The paints were just the one’s left over on my saucer from the last painting, so I ran out of most of the colors that I really needed.. Just need to re-add some colors and I’ll be good. Well, namely black, which is a shade, not a color. Whatever. Trivial.

Homesick.

I think that a lot of the proportions in this painting are slightly off. Hopefully its just me being nit-picky. I want to fill the upper level with clotheslines, but not having something in my mind to reference I’ve been having the damndest time trying to place them. I finally looked up some reference images and I think that perhaps the clotheslines are situated beneath the window, which would make so much more sense that way off to the side.. eh.

I need to run back to Billings soon to get more of my tea items and other miscellaneous items (like my 501).