samedi 9 juillet 2016

A quicky travelsketching in the beautiful Okanagan Valley

At the end of june, I headed ouest to the Okanagan Valley for the Wedding of a good friend of mine.  The Okanagan Valley is quite far from where I leave, so I decided to take this opportunity to do a travelsketching trip.

I was slightly nervous as I usually draw buildings and I'm a little afraid of greens...  But I think it went pretty well.  Still need practice, but it wasn't the disaster I was expected.

So I left at 5 in the morning as my flight was at 0730.  I guess I was silly thinking that the traffic at the Champlain Bridge wouldn't be too bad at 6... Hahahahahaha  So I managed to be passed security at 0725....  OUpS!  But no worries, I had just realized that my flight was delayed to 0945.  Yeah I was happy that my flight was delayed.


Sadly it made me miss my connection by 5 minutes in Vancouver.  I had 5 hours to kill...  So I ate this amazing club.

I was slightly tired when I got to my motel, so I decided to stay in and drew it.  It was quite clean and comfy for a motel.  But the price was a little ridiculously expensive ( that being said the hotels were horribly expensive...)


I got to drive a automatic malibu chevrolet.  It was nice, I wanted to clutched for a day, but I got used to it...  So used to it that when I got back to Montreal, I could get why my car didn't want to start...  I forgot to clutch hehehe.


On the first day I drove around and saw an indication for the desert center.  So I went for a visit.


I stopped by the point of view to see the spotted lake, which was nice but the lake wasn't very dry so we were just seeing the beginning of the spot.


I ended up in Osoyoos in a quite little cafe.


There are numerous beautiful beaches.  I stopped for a sketch at the Osoyoos' one.


The next day I hung out with friends that came in the area for the wedding as well.  It was quite nice to have people to hang out but to have my own time for sketching the timing was well balanced.


We visited a Kangaroo farm where I got to old a baby kangaroo!  That was amazing:)


We went too the Grey Monk Winery.   A beautiful place.  We got the tour of the factory and did some tasting.


And we finished the day at the beach relaxing after a very tiring day.


I celebrated Canada day with a nice lunch at the Tinhorn Creek Vineyard with a beautiful view.


Before heading to the wedding visited one more winery, the Dirty Laundry Winery.  The wine was very tasty and the site pretty.


 

Manage to do one drawing at the wedding. It was an amazing location.  And a fantastic wedding.  I had a great time!


We went on a vapour train tour the next day.  Nice scenery and we got robbed by cowboys!


There is a lot of winery in the valley, and there is also loads of fruits stands and, the fruits taste like heaven



That was a quick trip so it's time for my last lunch in the hillside winery.



And well, it ends at the airport.


jeudi 3 décembre 2015

New Orleans Travelsketching Solo

I left on november 18th for my first solo travelsketching trip.  My destination: New Orleans.

I was quite nervous as I never travel alone before, but luckily I speak english and if I encounter bad guys, I will just have to pock them in the eyes and run.  So there was no actual reason to be worried.


My trip didn't start quite as smooth as I would have liked though: A migraine kept me awake most of the night before my flight and sticked around until noon the next day.  But I was determine to sketch so I did manage to get the plane sketched anyways... Ouf!



To make things better, when I got to the hotel my credit card wasn't working...  All I wanted is to go to bed and hope that it wasn't a preview of how my vacation will go...

So here I was alone in New Orleans to sketch.  I've done it.  Well at least I got there, now I needed to go out and actually sketch... hehe

On my first morning in New Orleans, I took a magic pill to try to get reed of my migraine took my sketching bag and went to the discovery of this beautiful town.

I ended up renting a hotel room on the west bank so I had to get to the ferry terminal and cross the Mississippi in order to get into the interesting part of New Orleans.  Or so I thought.  On the first day I decided to walk to the terminal... it took about 90 mins.  Most of the walk was boring but when I got to Algiers historic district, I fall in love with the trees on Opelousas Av. which I sketched a little further in my trip.  It was also a very nice little neighbourhood with an architecture that varied a from the french quarter so I decided to sketch some of them.




For my first sketch in New Orleans I picked the St-Louis Cathedrale.  It was a pleasant experience as I could listen to the various street bands while I was sketching.


I really enjoy the architecture of the French Quarter.  But it wasn't easy to sketch as if you put everything it just look like a mess...






I also explore a little more:  Went to Charles av and did a ride on board a street car.



I, of course, waited over 45 minutes to savour those famous beignets from the café du monde...



Did some touristy activities as well: a Cruise on the Mississippi River on board the Creole Queen, a visit of a and a boat ride in a swamp looking for alligators.  I also visited a sugar can plantation that I sadly didn't have time to sketch.





One of the thing that I found a little more hard about travelling alone was the meals...  The waiters were quite nice though, and I did a few sketches to pass time...




And Here's a few more sketches




All in all I'm quite happy with my experience.   The people of New Orleans were very nice.  Sometime people would stop by and talk to me about my work which I appreciated as it made me feel less alone.

I thought I would have more sketches done, but I ended up doing a lot more walking around than I planned. I found it very hard to choose what I will be sketching, maybe there was going to be something more interesting further?  might as well walk a little more....  And sometime I ended up walking for hours telling me the same thing without sketching nothing hehe


Next planned travelsketching trip? Kenya and Tanzania in March!  I'm soon excited!

dimanche 27 septembre 2015

All good things must end

My first travelsketching trip is done.  I filled 25 pages with more then 60 sketches from 7 different countries in 14 days.

Since I left with reasonable expectations (had to be realistic as I went on a organized tour with my mom) and I'm quite satisfied with the outcome of my first experience. 

I started my first sketches with a pencil to put some guide lines in before I used the unforgiven pen and ink.  While on the cruise on the Rhin, I quickly realized that I had to be more courageous and skip that step as I was short in time due to the crasy schedule of the tour...  Which was a good thing  as I'm now definitively more confident with it then I was at the start...

So all the sketches was done on site, except for Sisi's Castle that I added afterward because I didn't like the hole left by the sky of the bottom sketch.  The Györ Sketch also had to be completed in the bus as I thought I would have the time to do one big sketch on site...  Silly me!... hehe  

As for the color, it was mainly done on the bus.  It made the bus ride seemed shorter...  And it also allowed me to make more sketches on site.

The only thing that I was slightly disappointed was my difficulty with keeping up with this blog...  But hopefully next time it will be better!  At least I will be the master of my time :)

So I had an amazing trip, with an amazing group, fantastic weather, beautiful things to see, and zero troubles :)

Next time: New Orleans in November!

The Bus:)

A lion at the base of a statue in Munich


A street in front of the Munich's Opera


Salzbourg and the eagle nest


Sisi's Castle, Vienne, and a musicien


Orchestra we saw in Vienne


Gyor


Budapest, bratislava and Prague


At some point I got tired of buildings...  So I did a few statue in Dresde


Amsterdam and Bruxelles


Our bus driver Giuseppe


And the airport to take the flight that brought me home.