Back to real life

This summer, I had the great good fortune to go on a 12-day trip to France, visiting Paris for 4 days and then spending the remaining time in Giverny and the surrounding area. I went with a group of fellow painting students and our instructor, Amy Metier. Giverny is the home of Monet’s Garden. The garden is a huge attraction, with over 500,000 visitors each year, but we were fortunate to be part of an Art Study group, which has arrangements with the Monet Foundation that allows their students to go and paint in the gardens for 2 hours each day after they officially close at 6:00 pm.

The experience of being in France for this time was so far removed from my everyday way of life that I’m finding I’m still processing all that I saw and did, as though a part of me is still there. Each day was filled with visual and culinary richness, all spent in the company of other artists. I had very few daily responsibilities pulling at me. And possibly the best of all, I didn’t touch a computer for the entire time!

I took over 1400 photos, so I’ve been slowly trying to wade through them in the past couple of days to pick out a good representative sampling. I also did several paintings. I’ll be posting more of all this in the coming days, but I just wanted to check in briefly in case anyone’s been wondering where I’ve been.