L’Hotel du Quai Voltaire, Paris, France. Ink and watercolor. 5″ x 7″ Sharyn Dimmick.
Dear Readers,
I know I promised you a second cake post from France. Sometimes things don’t work out as planned (and I will tell that story later). For now, I offer you a few images from my trip, with captions. Don’t worry — I have plenty to show and tell. I will be back on my regular schedule soon, once I can get to a farmers’ market, pick up my CSA box and get back into the swing of summer in the Bay Area. Today I went to my favorite annual party, a Fourth of July bash where we grill food, swim, chat, sing and have a giant potluck all afternoon. I’ll report on that, too (Mom parboiled a huge slab of pork ribs yesterday afternoon).
In the meantime, La Belle France in images from my camera and sketchbook.
Villefavard Roses. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick.
In the kitchen at Villefavard. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick.
“My” room at Villefavard.
Striped Cups. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick.
Librairie. Limoges, France. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick.
Dejeuner impromptu. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick.
French drain. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick
Band photo by Lisa X.
Painted Shoes. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick
Antique shop, Rue de St. Paul, Paris. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick.
Shop window, Rue de Bac, Paris. Photo by Sharyn Dimmick.
Pen and ink sketch of window and view from Room 409, Hotel Baudelaire Bastille, Paris, France. 5″ x 7″ Sharyn Dimmick
thekalechronicles 
Thanks for sharing your photos and sketches Sharyn. I love l’hotel. Looks like you had a great trip!
It was wonderful, Lauren. I’ll say more about it soon and I have more sketches to photograph as well.
Thanks for sharing the photos Sharyn – so nice to see. I love the picture of your room at Villefavard… looks really pretty!
You are welcome, Charles. I’ll post more photos and sketches on Sunday with some kind of essay about eating in France. My room was my friend’s great grandmother’s room, kept kind of like a shrine to her — when I arrived late at night there were no sheets on the bed, only a half rubber sheet for incontinence!
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful experience my friend it is awesome to have you back 🙂
Cheers
CCU
Thank you, CCU. It was a wonderful trip and I am already plotting ways to get back within the year.
Lovely, lovely! My brother and his family live in France (Lambersart). There is something so magical about that country… thanks for the reminder!
OMG, Movita. You are right, it is magical. I think it is the relentless devotion to beauty and civility, to getting the details right. The French seem to live more slowly and more fully than we do here in the States. I would be ready to move there, but I don’t have enough of the right shoes (not a joke, if you’ve seen the Parisians).
Love your sketches and all of your images are so beautifully graphic and well composed. I want the librarie sign! Also loved seeing you and your band. It looks like such a fabulous experience, Sharyn and I can’t wait to hear and see more about it. So far, it’s fun traveling through Paris vicariously with you! Welcome home.
Thank you, Betsy — of course, I chose the best photographs for the blog (I’m not sure everyone else shares my interests in French drains). There will be more soon — I’m planning an essay on eating in France and I need to photograph more things from my sketchbook.
I have a thing for interesting drains, too, and have posted a couple on my blog so far…so I’m a fan! And of course an essay on your experience of eating in France, well, I can’t wait!
I love skilled metalwork, Betsy: drains, grilles, iron balconies. I love it that craftsmen used to take the time to make utilitarian things beautiful: perhaps someday we, too, will have beautiful cities again, instead of everything cheap, new and splashy. But that will take quite the cultural revolution…
Agreed, on all counts! In general, we’ve allowed pride in craft, materials and creativity to go by the wayside in this country. Hence my own fascination with antiques and rescuing/resurrecting old and well crafted things of all types.
Welcome back. What great photos, Sharyn, I can’t believe that even a drain in Paris can have that much artistic appeal! I hope you had a marvelous time (how can you not?!) and I look forward to hearing the stories you have to tell. I am excited about our trip in September but I really don’t want to wish the summer away, so I try not to think about it. Just last night JT and I were talking about picking out our restaurants…too soon, I think. I don’t even know where I would like to celebrate my birthday in July yet!
Eva, if I could stow away with you and JT, I would. Paris should be your city — all the women wore beautiful shoes everyday — I would put on my pretty flats to walk to the bakery for breakfast because it made me feel like I fit in better. I also left my trusty backpack in my room most days and carried a small canvas satchel, which accommodated the smaller spaces better. I didn’t eat anywhere fancy. The best meal I had was at Chez Paul on the Rue de Charonne — roast leg of lamb with eggplant caviar, cold cucumber soup, peach tart and coffee for 31 Euros on my last night.
It’s one of my favourite cities too, Sharyn. I have a long list of stow aways! I’m going to have to curb my desire to take all my shoes with me..after all, I’ll need room to bring some back too!
You will, I’m sure, Eva. I saw so many beautiful shoes in France it made me want to reform and become a fashion plate — one doesn’t want to be shabby in a beautiful city, a dead giveaway of foreign origins.
Maison bienvenue, Sharyn! How quickly time flies — even more so when on such a great holiday! Your pictures are beautiful but, I must admit, my favorite of today’s images is your watercolor of the hotel. I really do like it and look forward to hearing more of your trip. And again, welcome home!
Thank you, John. More sketches to come: I did twenty-six while I was away. Stories, too.
Wonderful Sharyn!!! thank you for the photos – I love the little look into your sketchbook! Have fun getting back into the swing of things at home 🙂
Thank you, Shira. More sketches to come. Today at home is foggy — good for taking photos. A copy of “The Paris Wife” has come in for me at the library, so the Paris theme continues.
Welcome home, Sharyn! I am sure your creative brain is making a tally of where to begin! Undoubtedly you’ve had so many wonderful experiences and seen so many things that would be fun to share. I enjoyed these photos very much…loved the painted shoes! 🙂 Looking forward to hearing more as you get back into the swing of things! Debra
Thanks, Debra. There will be much more: more photos, more stories, more sketches to share: I’ve just finished drafting an essay on eating the French way: look for it Sunday.
Hey, I recognize that sketchbook! I like both photos you posted. Ahhhh, Europe!
Suzanne, I meant to tell you how your recommendations were spot on: I filled half the sketchbook (and now everyone I know wants one — maybe we should buy stock?) and I bought the Rick Steves convertible backpack: perfection. After considerable worry, my long black linen jumper, short batik shift and crazy striped cotton pants from the thrift store got me through sixteen days in Villefavard and hot, humid Paris. There should have been fourteen photos — maybe you got an early edition when I was still trying to make WordPress behave.
Oh, I meant both artpieces! I saw all the photos. Lovely to see France through your eyes. I appreciate your attention to the many beautiful details incorporated in daily life: signs, manhole covers, windows. Yep, we gotta buy stock in that particular travel sketchbook, the small Nature Sketch by Pentalic.
Wowie – this is my absolute favorite sketch! You were certainly inspired by your surrounding. Beautiful photos and welcome home.
Thank you, Jane. I take it you mean the hotel sketch, rather than the uncolored window view. There was a sketch artist who worked right outside the hotel who kept trying to sell me his painting of L’Hotel du Quai Voltaire (I had bought another sketch from him). His was lovely, with Oscar Wilde and others gathered outside the hotel, and more accurate (I lost a floor when I drew the hotel due to spatial deficits), but I couldn’t justify spending another 80 Euros. So one day I set on the quai across from the hotel and did my own. It’s proving to be popular — someone has already asked to buy it: I’m wondering if I should make some prints.
Fantastic images!
Thank you. More to come.
I can’t wait to hear all about your trip!
And I didn’t realize that you live in the Bay Area — I was down there about 2 weeks ago, visiting a friend. We ate our way around SF and had a great time. I’d love to live somewhere so sunny and dry if I could. 😀
We do have good food here, but we have as much fog as sun, depending on where you are. If you like hot sunny days the best time to visit is in September and early October.
Lovely to see you back Sharyn, I was thinking of you the other day and wondering how your trip was going. The photos and drawings you have shared here give a real glimpse into France, the window displays are always enticing, no matter how small the shop or the town!
I’m looking forward return visits with you and your blog 🙂
Ah, Claire, I’ll have to make a study of window displays next time I go. I noticed the care the French took with their storefronts: hand-lettering, carefully chosen colors…
Welcome home, Sharyn.. from the looks of these photos, you have so much inspiration for your future paintings.. I love your sketch/watercolor book, they’re just the best for capturing those moments. Your painting of L’Hotel du Quai Voltaire is just one of your best I think! I think from the looks of this painting, Paris suits you well!! Wouldn’t it be nice to live there for a year or so??
Thank you, Smidge. A year might be too much the first time around. But I’m formulating a plan to spend three months there next year, probably late April through June. Bon chance, eh? The little sketchbook, a Nature Sketch, was perfect: the paper will withstand both water and ink. There is so much beauty in Paris in little things as well as grand ones that I would think it would be right up your alley, too.
Welcome back 🙂
Thank you for sharing all those beautiful pictures, can’t wait to see more
You are welcome. More to come. I’m not sure just when: I may have to divide my blog between current California life and cooking and a French retrospective.
I LOVE LOVE your pictures and those sketches! If you ever frame any up to sell PLEASE let me bid on a few.. You need good wide mats. There is something absolutely soulful and what is the word, it means lacking in pretension, or affectation. Naked? Real? truthful.. i will think on it.. anyway loved your sketches .. c
Thank you, Celi. I do sell my work, so if you see something specific you want, sing out. I have mats (I’ll just check to see if I have horizontal 5″ x 7″s in stock, but I’m pretty sure I do — if not I’ll order them). To date, I have sold only original works. Someday I may venture into giclee prints. I’ll post some more work in the next week or so. You could also look me up on Facebook (my personal page: Sharyn Dimmick) and cruise the photo albums for more sketches. The mats I currently have fit into 11″ x 14″ frames.
Hand painted shoes? Now that is something that you could do very well.
Thanks, Bam. Not in watercolor. And not if they had to match!
Great photos!
Thank you.
I wrote a message for you yesterday but it is not here, am i in your spam? this has happened on a few blogs recently.. am i becoming invisible? loved this post by the way.. c
Yes, sorry. I checked my spam folder yesterday, but this was here today. Note to WordPress: ceciliag is not spam — in fact, she writes one of your most popular blogs. She’s always welcome to comment on The Kale Chronicles.
Love your photos and sketches! sounds like an amazing trip!
Thanks, Melissa. More to come.