Christmas present for our friends

Ever since we arrived in Perigueux, we have definitely been treated like family.  In fact, so much so that one family invited us to spend Christmas with them.  Not only are we going to eat with them on Christmas Eve, but we will also be spending the night, waking up early to open presents, and really just feeling like part of the family!  We wanted to get them something nice as a gift, but money is tight and most things we could buy didn't seem adequate.  I spent most of the day today working on a gift from the heart - a painting of Utah!  I know it still isn't much, but I put a lot of work into it and I'm pleased with the result.  I hope the family can enjoy it too.

Recent Photos

Encore de Paris

Paris

More Paris

Trip to Paris

Boy have we been busy in Paris!  I have had my camera with me at all times and I kept it on and took so many pictures with it that I had to recharge the battery each night so I was sure it wouldn't run out the next day!  Obviously I can't put all the pictures up here, but here is a fairly decent sample of what I have been up to this past week.

Encore des photographies

I've grown to really enjoy photography in the past couple weeks.  Every day I learn a little more about it and the pictures start looking better and better!

Night Photos

Here are some pictures I took at night in Perigueux.  I had never really attempted such photos at night - every experience I had ever had with night photos involved a point and shoot camera (never giving too great of results), automatic settings (I had no idea what settings to change anyway), and most of the time a flash (which in pictures like these would have made them much darker, ironically).  I don't have a tripod here in France, so a lot of them are a little blury.  Here are the ones I did manage to take with a steady hand.

Photography

Here are some pictures of a nice fountain in Perigueux.  I'm not sure who the statue is or what the name of this place is, but some of the pictures turned out nice.

The Heart of a Frenchman

This painting is named The Heart of a Frenchman.  Actually, this is the first painting I have ever named... cool.  I had never painted anything from life before.  I had always used a photograph or a picture on the computer for reference, but I read in a painting book that, "Painting from life should be one of your first priorities," and it went on to explain that in life there are colors and reflections and changes in tone and temperature that are lost in a camera.  I really wanted to give life painting a try, but I wasn't really in the mood to pack everything up and walk around the town looking for a nice spot to sit down and paint, so I grabbed a tomato.  The one I had was shaped almost like a heart and I laughed to myself thinking, "It's the heart of a Frenchman," since they love their tomatos so much.  I knew a man once who did business with Frenchmen and was having very little success.  One day he had a brilliant idea.  Each time he was meeting a new client, he would give them a tomato plant as a gift before talking business.  For some reason, this gesture caused the Frenchmen to have a lot more respect for him and his business.  They would listen to what he had to say rather than immediately disregarding him and his business began to flourish.  He said it was all because of the tomato.  One tomato ended up not being enough for my painting so I grabbed some cheese, the other staple to French life and a mug - for hot chocolate obviously, and a couple other tomatos.  So, voila, The Heart of a Frenchman.  9"x12" Acrylic on Canvas pad. 

Biarritz Beach

Well here is my first ever attempt at a painting in Acrylic paint, since that is all I was able to bring to France with me, and my first ever painting done in France as well!  I was planning on doing some touch ups to this one, but when it came down to it, I decided I would rather do another different painting and leave that one as it is for now.  Who knows, maybe I will get around to touching it up soon.  This painting is of a beach in Biarritz, France, which is Basque country.  It was a cloudy, almost rainy day when we were there and I tried to portray that in the painting as well.  There are very few bright or vibrant colors for that reason.  Again, this one is 9"x12" on canvas pad but Acrylic rather than Oil.

Thierry Henry - French soccer player

Again, for some reason I can't get it turned the right direction.