Views of Roussillon and Goult

Roussillon is the largest producer of ochre in the world. A lovely village.

Back to Sur le Sorgue for market day.  This page will be added to as it seems a little sparse.

Gould is just the loveliest little village.  A great place to stroll, sketch and let it all soak in.

Lourmarin, Murs and Apt

Finally a few more pages from my sketchbook in France.  Bits and pieces and a little collage over a very out of prospective car in Murs.  6" x 9" Robert Bateman sketchbook with pen and watercolor.

Saint Santurin and Bonnieux

A couple of sketchbook pages from the last couple of days. Having fun exploring new villages and making new friends.  And a Collage page which I think needs more work.

Joucas Vaucluse

Sketchbook page from a little town, Joucas Vaucluce.

 Robert Bateman 6" x 9" sketchbook

 Watercolor and Pen

First day at Les Bassacs

We had a relaxing first day in France.  After breakfast we went to market day and then after lunch I wandered, sketched and settled in.  Managed to get one page done in my 6" x 9" sketchbook.

Market day in L'Isle sur la Sorgue

Horizon Lines

My art critique group does monthly challenges to keep our creative juices flowing.  This month's challenge is to compose a landscape with either a very high or a very low horizon line.

I did a series of small 5" x 5" monoprints.
My first print is with a very high horizon line.  I only used my palette knife for this one, laying in the layers of colors and the using the side of the knife to break up the foreground.

My second print, also with the palette knife, was supposed to be my very low horizon line but wasn't as low as I think it should be…..and it looks more like a seascape with the waves crashing over some rocks with absolutely no horizon line. Hmmm…maybe I'll get extra credit!

So I tried another very low horizon. This time I rolled the ink on for the background sky and used the palette knife again for the ground and palm tree.

It was fun to work in a series of horizon lines but also fun to work with the palette knife to create my images.

…and Jane came up with a new class quote:
"Anything worth doing is worth doing in a series"

A Stroll through Bowers

Made a little side trip over to Bowers Museum to renew my membership and took a quick sketching trip through the galleries.  I had started this page awhile back when I visited an exhibition from China just doing the hatband for a crown.  Took a spin through the Spirits and Headhunters: Art of the Pacific Islands to finish the page.

This is another collaborative piece with M.  He painted the watercolor and I added the pen work.


Both of these are in my
Robert Bateman 5" x 7" Sketchbook
Pen and Watercolor

Zentangle Time

Tangled Expressions is a group that meets once a month to meet up with friends and play with Zentangles.  This is a page in my 5" x 5" Handbook where I combined a few pattern ideas and actually did a little shading too.

This is another page in my 5" x 5" Handbook using a traditional Zentangle set up and some of my favorite tangles.  Looks like those silly Quabogs took over two or three windows!