Showing posts with label travels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travels. Show all posts

Monday, September 12, 2011

On the Road to Provence (+ the checklist!)

Luggage and art kit in my Citroen Picasso at the Folkestone Eurotunnel terminal
complete with breakfast muesli for 3 weeks!
You'd think all the plans I needed to make for a painting holiday in France would be about how much art stuff can I could get in the boot.  After all you do want all your kit out of sight!  Plus I am a long time "everything including the kitchen sink" specialist so it's always a bit of a worry.

However there's a bit more to it than that! The long list of "things to do/bring" get a lot longer when you take your own car.  For those contemplating doing the same thing (and so I have a record for next time!) here are some tips about things to think about if you go on a sketching trip via car in France.

Plus a map of my route and some comments on what happened en route.

Taking a car to Europe

Bear in mind that taking your own car is a lot more complicated than hiring a car when you get there.

Here's a checklist for those who have never taken their car to Europe and driven there before - and for me for next time so I don't have to try and remember it all!
  • Get insurance cover for driving the car in Europe (probably automatic if you have comprehensive cover but almost certainly worth checking)
    • Notify your insurer of your holiday dates 
    • Check what you should do if you have an accident while abroad (some will send you a checklist)
    • Check cover re replacement car/transport in the event of an accident
  • Buy vehicle recovery for Europe. What you do here largely depends on your attitude to risk and the size of your pockets.  I did some investigating and decided I felt safest paying a bit more and going with what always used to be known as AA 5* and is now known as European Breakdown Cover
  • Make sure you know the laws about driving in Europe. Do NOT assume that what applies in the UK is all you need to worry about in Europe. Many countries have additional requirements and differences in the law.  
Speeding offences attract an on the spot fine of up to approx £500
  • Avoid being caught out for failing to have the right kit with you when driving in Europe. (Here's a checklist Driving in Europe - Are you legal?) BUY:
    • headlamp beam adapters - and remember to apply them!
    • a reflective yellow emergency.  Keep it in the passenger part of the car (in the boot doesn't count. Now I know why Citroens have so many cubby holes!)
    • a warning triangle for erection in the event of an accident
    • a spare set of headlight bulbs
    • a first aid kit
    • GB plate
Motoring LAW in France and many other European Countries now requires all vehicles to carry a Warning Triangle and a Reflective Vest.
  • When driving in Europe it helps if you 
    • drive a French car (it's why I buy them) in France and 
    • make sure your car registration plates include the EU/GB icon
  • Buy a satnav and make sure that it has maps for Europe (not all do) - this was one of the most intelligent decisions I made this summer!  Being a georgrapher and loving maps, I had carefully tended my ever growing map collection for years.  However I was hugely impressed with the satnav's ability to get me from one place to another with the minimum of fuss.  (I bought the WHich Best Buy - the Garmin nuvi 3760 and even managed to impress some men with its iPhone like size and characteristics!)
  • Investigate the alternative options for crossing the Channel.  I'd always gone by ferry before now - and it's a long drawn out process.  This time I went by Eurotunnel and I couldn't believe how fast it was.  Trains depart every 20 minutes and they only take just over half an hour to get there!  Having done it once I'm never ever going back to the ferry.
Eurotunnel: The ramp down to the train
I'm about to enter that black hole at the end of the train!
  • Find as many maps as possible for finding the Channel Tunnel. Notwithstanding your satnav, if you take the wrong exit you're lost in the middle of a nightmare of roads in Calais which do not tell you where to go if you are a car driver wanting to cross the channel. It's also very confusing because the ferry port is not the same place as the Tunnel. My satnav insists on knowing the post code and of course they only supply a post code for their offices which are not at the same places as the Chunnel/Le Shuttle terminal for cars! I also couldn't get the supplied coordinates to work with my Garmin satnav - but these are they for those of you with TomToms!
    • travelling from the UK GPS coordinates: Latitude: 51:05:44N (51.09559), Longitude: 1:07:19E (1.12207)
    • travelling from France - GPS coordinates: Latitude: 50:56:21N (50.93906), Longitude: 1:48:52E (1.81446)
  • Do NOT try and detect mobile radar if travelling in France. You could end up with your car being impounded. A satnav which detects and announces stationery radar which is publicised does not count.
  • Inform your bank - tell your bank and credit card companies that you will be using their cards while in another country. That way they won't think your plastic has been stolen!


The Route to Provence

On the right is a map of the route I took.

Essentially if you're travelling on your own as I was I'd recommend a couple of stops unless you're very young, energetic and completely bonkers as it's a approximately 1,000 kilometres (11-12 hours of driving).  I broke it up into two long days and what was supposed to be a shorter day and stopped off south of Reims - at Epernay on Day 1 and east of Lyons on Day 2.

I also drove most of the way on autoroutes.  It's not the most scenic way to see France but it is the best way to cover the distance - most of the time.

I would also recommend staying on the outskirts of  major towns   The last thing you want to with after a long drive is one way systems and the heavy traffic associated with a rush hour.

Do check the settings for your preferences on your satnav.  Mine determined that I needed to do a major detour around Valance when it decided it needed to comply with my preference for slow-moving traffic - which landed me in yet slower moving traffic!

If I did the journey again I think I'd try and avoid the weekends as I personally found the juggernaut lorries easier to deal with than vast numbers of French people trying to go to the coast!

Day 1 - London to Epernay

This involved a drive down to Folkestone to pick up the train through the Channel tunnel and then across across the great big field which is northern France on the autoroute A26. Via the Chunnel and the A26 autorooute that was a journey of 283 miles - which was estimated to take 5 hours 34 mins (exclusive of breaks and waiting around!)

En route I passed many very historical places such as the location of the "Cloth of Gold" meeting took place between the English and French Kings many moons ago.  Plus I kept seeing the names associated with the battles of the First World Wars - the Somme, Vimy and Lens.

The BMW Lads inside the Eurotunnel Train
I did this sketch of what I'm calling "The BMW Lads" while I was sat in my car travelling under the English Channel!  Now I bet there's not many people who've tried that as a place to sketch...

I couldn't work out why there were so many flash and fast cars at Folkestone and on the train.  I lost count of the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches and BMWs.  Then I got to the first service station at Calais and I finally twigged that it was the eve of the Le Mans 24 Hours race - beloved of all boys with fast toys.   Vast numbers of fast cars and chaps talking engines and what their next car is going to be!

My next post is from Epernay and one of the best meals I had in France.

Links:
Previous posts about my French Sketchbook 2011
See also the Four Go Painting in Provence blog 
Posted by on 4 comments:
Categories , , , , ,

Monday, August 29, 2011

A French Sketchbook - June 2011

In June this year I travelled - with my sketchbook and brand new paints - to Provence for a new experience - a painting house party!

I stayed in the home of Julian Merrow Smith (Postcard from Provence) and Ruth Phillips (Meanwhile) while Ruth played cello at the Garsington Opera Festival and Julian learned a few of the tricks essential to his status as a new father.

Joining me in our painting house party and contributing to our group blog Four Go Painting in Provence were:
I was there for three weeks in total with the others coming and going at various times - but with all four of us together for a couple of days in the first week

Provence is special to me because it's where I came back to art - some twenty odd years ago after a very long gap - albeit in the Luberon which is the next valley over (see The first time I went painting in Provence). It was fascinating to go back and see some of the same places again and to see how much or how little they had changed.

I've been pondering for a little while now how best to tackle recording this particular sketching trip on this blog. There were a number of issues
  • First - the house got hit by lightning during a major storm and we lost all internet access. That made blogging a bit tricky (it had to be done from the bar in town and only one image at a time could be uploaded). Hence in June I focused on the group blog rather than this one- and consequently this one does not have a lot of posts about the trip. One of the features of this blog is it contains a record of my Travels with a Sketchbook and I want to remedy that for my last trip.
  • Second - many of my sketches are 11"x16" and some in my A3 size Moleskine Folio Sketchbook are 16" x 22" as double page spreads. Getting these digitised is not a particularly quick exercise! Having been daunted by the challenge for a while I've solved this one by taking photographs - but may well replace these in due course with rather better scanned images.
  • Third - I've always previously done trips on a day by day basis. However after a think, I think this one might be better tackled in broadly speaking a chronological order - but with much more focus on places and the type of image I was creating. Plus photos added in where appropriate.
The trip starts and finishes with my drive through France - to and from the Channel Tunnel at Calais.

It will feature an awful lot of drawings of French food (together with menu details) - which became a bit of a theme for me this trip. I'll talk a bit more about those sketches and how I did them as I get to them. They were a lot of fun to do and the foodies out there will be salivating! :)

Examples of sketching meals in French restaurants
Pen and ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Here's a notional running order. I'll come back and add in links as these are completed. I'm going to redo some posts done in June.

I've also referenced those posts on Four Go Painting in Provence (4PP) which are relevant and will not be reproduced on this blog.

Preparation
The Journey to Provence
The Provence Sketchbook
Sketching the Terrace at Couguieux
Pen and ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell
The Journey to the Channel Tunnel - and three more meals in France
Posted by on 4 comments:
Categories , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Margaret Mee's paintbox at Kew Gardens

Usually when I'm out and about with a sketchbook, I'm sketching places and sometimes people in places.  Now and again however I sketch an object which catches my attention - such as Margaret Mee's paintbox which went with her on her travels to Brazil.

Margaret Mee's Paintbox at Kew Gardens 
(Old and New South American Botanical Art exhibition)
8 x 10", pencil in Moleskine
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I was at Kew Gardens to this summer to see the exhibition of Old and New South American Botanical Art at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery - and only realised recently that I hadn't actually got round to posting this sketch of her paintbox and brushes.


Links:
Posted by on No comments:
Categories , , ,

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's sketches of Northern Italy

The Glasgow School of Art has developed a wonderful website which allows us to see the sketches of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928). 

I adore Mackintosh's drawing style and can stare at his drawings and sketches and paintings for hours and hours - so finding this site is very special for me!


The Northern Italian Sketchbook is a comprehensive website, created by Glasgow Arts Scool and funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council [AHRC], offering:
Follow the links (above) to explore Northern Italy through the eyes of the celebrated Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) during his sketching tour of the Continent in 1891. Compare his superb sketches with present-day photographs from the same locations, and retrace his steps with our interactive 19th century Baedeker maps

The Sketchbook contains drawings from the later part of Mackintosh's tour, beginning with Verona. It covers
Como, Cathedral, studies of window and two finials
Charle Rennie Mackintosh - Northern Italian Sketchbook
  • Milan (28 June-6 July); 
  • Pavia (7 July-?); 
  • Certosa di Pavia ( probably several days around 12 July); 
  • Paris and Chateau d'Ecouen (late July?); 
  • Antwerp (late July?). 
It also contains several pages of designs for the Glasgow Art Club (1892-3) and the Glasgow Herald Building (1893-5).

If you use the search facility, it also shows you photos of the place today.

Most of the sketches are in pencil and some are now a tad faint.  However there are a few where colour has been added in watercolour.  He doesn't draw people - he draws buildings and most particularly he draws bits of buildings.  He's working out how the structure and ornamentation work.

What I like about is as a facsimile sketchbook is it shows you exactly what a real sketchbook looks like - even one kept by somebody who is technically very proficient at drawing.  It has all the unfinished sketches and the ones that went wrong and the bits of this and that which make it very real for me.  It's also very apparent, as one might expect, that he loves drawing architectural details.  He fills pages with unpicking and reassembling the twirly bits!

Finally, I have to add that I am very impressed by the Glasgow School of Art.  They appear to be one of the few art schools in the UK which have really grasped the potential of IT and the internet for sharing the riches of our artistic heritage.  Often, people start out on a path to learning about art because of the images they have seen and have been able to study.  I'm very grateful for their enlightened approach which allows others to share  and be inspired by Mackintosh's talents and skills in drawing.

Links:
Posted by on 3 comments:
Categories , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Travelling to Paris

Last time I tried to catch an early morning Eurostar I managed to oversleep and leave myself with just 35 minutes to get from bed to the platform!

This time - with two alarm clocks and an early morning wake-up call - I managed to get up at the right time to catch the train to Paris and everything was going swimmingly...........until we were locking the door and I realised I couldn't find the car key for "he who must not be bored while I sketch" ! You can imagine what happened next. Suffice to say key was found in a "really safe place" - in my purse - and I was driven to St Pancras International Station in recovery mode - heaving huge sighs of relief.

My trip companions

My trip to France is with my sister and niece and the itinerary in terms of places has been largely devised by my niece. They're going to remain nameless as they're not huge fans of being online - just like 'must not be bored'. I'm going to have to come up with 'names' for them or else they'll end up being called sister and niece throughout all the posts!

The journey

We caught the 7.52am Eurostar from St Pancras International Station to Paris Gare du Nord. Neither sister nor niece were enthusiastic about tunnels under the channel but the combination of time and money saved proved to be a considerable incentive - hence why we were on the Eurostar and why they spent a great deal of the journey with their eyes shut. Getting up very early might also have been a factor!

It did mean that I got to chat with a very nice couple who got on at Ebbsfleet in Kent who were on their way to the south of France to meet up with their son who has a very interesting job as skipper of the The Who's classic sailing yacht! Who knew Pete Townshend was a big fan of yachts and yachting?

Early morning balloons in Northern France (27th September 2009 10.15am)
pen and coloured pencils
in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrel

I did another one of my composite sketches of northern France from the train - flat, fields of different colours interspered with trees. However this time the sketch gained an additional feature - low flying balloons!

I also sat there trying to work out how to twitter with my mobile phone which I've not done before.

Paris Gare du Nord makes for a bit of a contrast with the shiny new and gleaming St Pancras. The main difference being that Gare du Nord is the busiest station in Europe. Once you get off the Eurostar platform you are confronted with 'stuff' and signs everywhere. I don't think I've ever seen a more cluttered station in visual terms.

We walked 15 minutes (downhill) to our hotel - the Hotel France Albion - which I can recommend. Although only 2 stars it was satisfactory and competitively priced for its location relative to central Paris. That said the twin room occupied by my sister and niece was small - but then that's the common theme to Paris hotel rooms!

It made a particularly good base for exploring Paris as it's a very short walk to two metro stations (Line 7 (pink): Le Peletier and Line 12 (green): Notre Dame de Lorette) which both gave easy access to key destinations in central Paris. I also liked that it was in a 'normal' non touristy district.

Postscript: The really odd bit of all this was I loaned "must not be bored" an anorak which I haven't worn for ages - and while I was away he found my second car key (which has also been officially 'lost' for ages) in the pocket. Weird or what?

Links:
Posted by on 2 comments:
Categories , , , , , ,

Sunday, September 27, 2009

27th September: Catching the Eurostar to Paris

Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Paris and Montmartre
taken the last time I was in Paris from the roof of the Musée d'Orsay

By the time this post publishes this morning, I'll be on the 7.52am Eurostar from St Pancras International Station to Paris Gare du Nord with my sister and niece. Sketching will probably start on the train! I may even twitter - having finally worked out how to do that via my mobile. [Note: My mobile is set to 'send' only]

Paris is one hour ahead of London so by 11.17am we should be arriving at in the busiest station in Europe.

We'll then be walking some fifteen minutes to our hotel in the ninth arondissement - I'll be reporting later on whether I can recommend it. It looks promising and it took an awful lot of browsing of the options before I found it!

After which the sightseeing - and the sketching starts in earnest!

Blogging our French trip

Today, we're starting our trip to France. If you're interested you can take a virtual trip to Paris, Normandy and the Loire valley with us as I've arranged for a post to publish each day on this blog about where we are and what we might be getting up to!

I'm not trying to 'go digital' for the trip so sketches and photos from the trip will be posted when I get back - much in the same way as I've done for previous trips (see Venice, Italy (May 2005); California, Arizona & New Mexico (July 2006); Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont & Maine (September 2006)).

Both sets of posts will include travel tips as this is a travel blog as much as it's a sketchbook blog.

If you're ever doing this particular crossing of the Channel you might find the following reviews interesting to read:
Tip: I booked over the phone as we were doing two different types of ticket (one return and two one-way) and you can't do different combinations for the same party online. I ended up with two different references for adjacent seats. I was able to print my Eurostar return ticket off using my own printer. However as a mistake was made by the booking people on the other ticket and this was remedied but this then meant that it couldn't then be printed off online and the tickets had to be posted to me - in the middle of an ad hoc postal strike!

Moral of the story - if you book over the phone and discover they have made a mistake, get them to cancel the whole ticket and start again if you want to print off rather than wait for the post!
Two important points to note:
  • Please do comment - but it's unlikely your comment will be published until I have the time and can also get access to a trustworthy computer to moderate comments - which might not be until I get home again!
  • I'll be tweeting during the trip - but only those who have signed up to follow me already can see those tweets as I've protected my Twitter stream for the duration of the trip. Sorry to be boring (and this is not an exercise in trying to collect followers) but I'm just trying to minimise the incidence of 'weird' people following me because I'll be tweeting about popular places.
Links:
Posted by on No comments:
Categories , , , ,

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Taking a line for a walk - from Le Havre to Rome




Paul Klee once explained that "a drawing is simply a line going for a walk". In the summer of 2000, Christopher Lambert drew a straight blue line between Le Havre and Rome on a map of Europe when eighteen months short of his 70th birthday. He then set off with his all leather Brasher walking boots, a small rucksack, a couple of pens, some watercolour pencils and a sketchbook journal. 1,075 miles and 71 walking days later he arrived in Rome having taken a page each day to sketch and write about what he saw on his trip.

This is the hardback facsimile version of his sketchbook. As a concession to his handwriting, there is a thin typescript margin containing two lines of summary text about each day - as he says his writing gets a bit cramped at times!

Lambert developed a taste for long distance walking when, on his retirement, he walked 440 miles along five ancient footpaths across southern Britain to his new retirement home in Devon. For the Millennium he thought he'd like to try one of the pilgrim routes across Europe. Consequently, in July 2000 he set off carrying a pilgrim's passport - a letter of brotherly greetings in Latin from the Anglican Provost of Portsmouth Cathedral to Pope John Paul in the Vatican in Rome. On his trip he averaged just over 15 miles each walking day overall, although this inevitably varied along the route across France, through Switzerland, down through northern Italy and the 'thigh' of Italy to Rome. En route - and along his straight line - he visited Honfleur, Fontainebleau Forest, the Canal de Bourgogne, Dijon, Lausanne and from there along the ancient pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena, through the Grand St. Bernard pass across the Alps to Aosta, Lucca and Siena before reaching Rome.

What particularly appealed to me about this book is his habit of doing daily sketches while travelling - a habit I developed on my two USA trips last year (see RH column for more details). I also identified with his approach to sketching. He uses pen and ink to sketch, followed by coloured pencils to indicate values and form and something of local hues. The book contains over 240 illustrations of a huge variety of 'views', buildings, people, flowers, insects and the butterfly which sat on his hand one day while he drew (see below - page 52 Col du Grand St Bernard)



Pages 85 and 85 Lucca
"Taking a Line for a Walk"
copyright Christopher Lambert - used with permission

His working life as an architect is evident in the ease with which his eye takes in and quickly absorbs the key features of complicated architecture. I loved the way he tells himself off when he's done something overly complicated - giving himself injunctions to simplify. Overall, despite what he says below, his style is very pleasing - being loose and unfussy. Some of the very simplest sketches have the greatest impact.
"The sketches had priority - to the extent that I would often make myself late departing from a place because I just had to record it....I wanted to shake off my architectural topographical style and in a few flicks of the pen and pencils capture the essence of a thing or place, but it very rarely happened. Nevertheless these small drawings became my footsteps as the miles elapsed and the pages filled...."

His habit of sketching over meals is also one with which I'm very familiar. I even suspect, given the nature of his sketches, that we might share the same habit of table hopping to find the table which offers the 'right' view. Which is not always the best view but rather is the one which lends itself best to sketching.

His meditations on walking, his surroundings and the impact that a long walk has on an individual are both interesting and powerful reminders to reflect on life at something less than 4 miles an hour. It's a book which more than repays any attempt to read his handwriting - which is not so difficult once you get used to it. This is a book that I can particularly recommend to all those accustomed to travelling to many destinations at top speed and who may not be acquainted with the benefits and "the inevitability of gradualism"! ;)

In conclusion, I'd highly recommend this book for anybody wanting to keep a sketchbook journal of a trip. Those visiting places along this route will also get an insight into life outside a car and the rhythm of life which occurs when walking everyday on a very long walk.
"The illustrations have a wonderful vividness and the text has a gentle undercurrent of humour.......It's the kind of book that you can pick up time after time and feel yourself wandering through the byways of France and Italy, hearing the sounds and smelling the fragrance of the hedgerows and fields around and about, or imagining yourself sitting outside in a village square enjoying a glass of wine" Sir Chris Bonington
NOTE: In future: the new revamped version of this blog will contain reviews of various books relevant to individuals travelling with a sketchbook. I'm anticipating this will include:
  • the published sketchbooks of other artististic travellers
  • 'how to sketch' books
  • good travel guides for an area
  • maps I've found useful in the past
Since I have bookshelves weighed down with the above it should mean I can avoid the stop/start frequency of a blog which is just about trips!

Links:

Technorati tags: , , , , , , , ,, , ,
Posted by on 5 comments:
Categories , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)