Sunrises, sunsets and a trip to Paris

Materials chat, a peek into my travel sketchbook and a new series of paintings.

Apr 11, 2023

Last month I spent 5 days in Paris. It was a spontaneous trip prompted by my discovery of, and subsequent obsession with, Cécile McLorin Salvant. I went to see her in concert and it was incredible. If you’re into jazz and you don’t already know her music, check her out!

I decided to travel light this time. Extremely light. These are all the materials I took with me:

Caran d’Ache Neocolor IIs, chalk pastels (various brands), Caran d’Ache Supracolor Soft, Luminance, Faber Castell watercolour pencils.

Having spent a lot of time in Paris, a collection of memories had already formed quite a distinct colour palette in my mind. I knew I would want some peachy pinks and ochres to capture the limestone walls and cornflower-slate blues for the roofs. Pale lilac for the evening, Paynes grey for the balconies, red in case of flowers or a fashionable lady. I tried to have a range of tones and a balance of saturated and muted colours. Given the time of year, I kept the greens minimal and muted…

In the top left, colours I definitely wanted to include; underneath, working out the other colours (the greens and pinkish red were throwing things off). On the right, the final palette. Scattered around, colours from final palette thrown together at random to make sure everything worked together.

I regretted the greens when I ended up sketching in the botanical greenhouses! But looking back, I’m glad I had this limitation as it forced me to be resourceful and think really hard about the colours I was seeing and how they related to each other: which greens could get away with being blue, black or yellow instead?

The cactus sketch is my favourite from the trip and I’m sure it would have been much less interesting if I had brought the “correct” colours with me.

All the sketches together. They’re all up on my website if you want to flip through.

Normally I use materials that are water-soluble and easy to layer up. Chalk pastels are neither of these things, so they were a little challenging to incorporate. I had to think carefully about the order in which I laid things down, which is annoying when you want to be spontaneous. I did love their softness, though, and some of the colours are so subtle that I have no equivalent in another medium. Still, if I bring such a limited palette on a trip again, I will probably either stick to the “compatible” materials or just pastels.

Speaking of which: I went to the pastels exhibition at Musée d’Orsay. It was perfect timing for me, since I am using them more in my work these days, and it blew my mind to see all the different techniques. Some you might call drawings, others you could swear were oil paintings. Degas made some crazy innovations, like using steam with them!

Left-right: Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Piet Mondrian

No trip to Paris would be complete without visiting my friends at Slow Galerie! I have just restocked some prints with them, including my Paris Rooftops, and also dropped off some original paintings. You can find everything on their online shop (they ship worldwide).

Most importantly, we started planning my first ever solo show with them! You might have seen that I’ve been painting a lot of sunrises and sunsets lately. It started very suddenly, but I have always loved trying to capture these in-between times of day with their fleeting colours. It sends me into a frantic, desperate state, which is my favourite way to feel when I paint. Here’s what I’ve got far:

I’m planning to keep it up all year, documenting the changing seasons. I hope it will be beautiful. The exhibition won’t be until 2025, so no need to even pencil it in yet… just have your pencil ready. ;)