High Contrast Grey.

 I received an SMS about my cell phone being fixed so I decided to take a break from studying to go and pick it up. Wander Rennes and see what the commencement of spring has done. The leaves has started to return. Flowers are budding. I roll the sleeves up on my shirt and don't take a jacket. The tie has felt too formal lately. I see a french man on the metro and think differently. His hair is long and shaggy and a mess. His tie is not too wide and not too thin. Dark blue with dots. As I wandered the neighbor hood near by I realized I was near the old building that I saw months ago when Fulya and I rode bikes looking for Emmaus. I sadly didn't have my camera with me and I wanted to come back and take a picture, but I just hadn't gotten around to wandering this part of town since. I was thinking I wouldn't again before I left since Emmaus had moved away. If I were to choose a neighborhood in Rennes in which to live I think I would choose not too far from here,...

Fulya was looking at my sketchbook the other day and remarked that she liked the random sketch that I had made of some girl that I saw walking along with a little plastic cup of coffee during the wind storm a few weeks past. As I still have some small pieces of very good watercolor paper [that I had sized to be used for some small frames I had collected but did not have anything to put in them yet], I thought that perhaps I could transfer a little sketch to a little piece of paper to play with techniques. Namely the layering of water colors. Something that I know I have been working on a lot, but practice makes perfect. I also wanted to see how using my new mechanical pencil filled with blue graphite would work in hiding my lines as I initially worked. I forgot to take a picture of the transition between not having the girl inked at all to inking her and starting the background. I was having a hell of a time trying to figure out a setting in which to put her. At first I was th...

My latest cooking endeavor has been making baked potatoes. As I wandered the market yesterday I was thinking about new ways to save money on food, which led to the realization that potatoes are cheap and filling. I have been using a microwave en lieu of an oven thanks to the problem of living in student housing. I am not sure what kind of potatoes these are, as I chose by if they were organic and local and didn't search for a name. Little things. Delicious. This latest experiment I filled with a hint of butter, crème fraîche, some sea salt mixed with herbs, and instead of black pepper like I have been using I decided to add a bit of Dijon Mustard. Things to bring back to the states for upcoming dinner parties. My other new experiment was inspired by a homework assignment to write a recipe for a dish of my country. I looked for something from the Pacific Northwest and found an intriguing recipe for herbed French toast. I skimped on adding a dollop of sour...

 More continuation on the painting. Since the façade is coming along slowly now I have begun working on the interior of the building. I have been having a hell of a time working on getting proportions correct with the woman up in the window. First she's too small, not she seems too big. She's like Goldilocks. It seems that lately I have been running into really missing a few of the paints that I didn't pack. Simple things that I know I can get replacements for here.. but the price would be a bit higher than I would hope for, ie. free since I already have them. It will just have to be added to the list of things that I will look forward to when I return to the states. Burritos, an oven, a sink that doesn't scald every time, options other than shitty hand driers that don't work while in public restrooms, toilet seats, my collection of cooking items, and of course family and friends... most of these complaints with France I think could be solved if I didn't live...

This weekend I decided to once again go by another town in Bretagne. I wasn't sure where to go so after getting a breakfast of a caramel crêpe from the market I went to the train station and looked on the ticket machine for the next departures and were I was leaning towards going by Saint-Malo again I thought that I should once again try someplace new, so I saw that the train for Vannes was leaving in the next 10 minutes and I knew nothing of the town. A few moments later of pressing on a glass screen I had a ticket and was sitting on the train shuffling my tarot deck. Upon arriving at the town I couldn't quite figure out where I was or where to go. The train station appeared to the on the outskirts of the town so I followed some people who got off the train with me to see if they would lead me to centre-ville. Although I lost them when I started taking photos I still soon made it to centre-ville. In knowing nothing and just seeing the town to me it felt like perhaps it ha...

I realize it has been a little while since I updated the progress of this piece. It has been going slowly lately. A combination of having to deal with a full schedule of classes, wandering around Bretagne, and an addiction to the stupid little games on my computer like solitaire. Usually I can combat the addiction with going to a studio to work, but Rennes 2 doesn't seem to have anything like that set up. Not even a single student easel that I can seem to find. The painting is coming along very slowly, but I think I am close to the point of coming back in with ink and redefining everything with a sharper edge soon. I have already started with some of the shutters on the 1st floor.

I went to see Cabaret: Le Musical de Broadway. Of course it was amazing. Although I was not able to get any photos to blog and share. When I walked in they searched bags and I was forced to coat check my camera, for free so it wasn't too bad. Although this seemed a bit strange since there were quite a few people who had smuggled in cameras and were using them (with flash even) during the performance. But then again cell phones (which I have been told is a complete Americanism in the English language) have progressed far enough that they are like good cameras. In the end I bought the CD for the show with the songs being sung in French. A souvenir and perhaps a lesson in translation. So many of the scenes were so amazing. The simple little things that they did. I wish I had been closer to catch more of the smaller things, but front row center for our price bracket was amazing still. In their rendition of 'Two Ladies' one of the ladies was actually a man dressed up as a lad...

The weather here in Rennes lately has been gorgeous. Warm misty fog.

 For a few weeks now I have been trying to plan going by Saint-Brieuc to see an art museum that has a free exhibition on the art of Henri Rivière going on right now. I arrived at just about lunch time so I set out to find myself some lunch before going by the museum. From the financial shopping area I found myself making circle until I found myself in a more medieval section that had some restaurants. Although because of all the circling around I was a bit lost. Sadly not truly lost. Three cheese baked potato with two salads and a glass of red wine. At one point in my wandering I saw a sign that said to turn to go to a valley and as I was wandering and not wanting to take the same road to get back to where I came from I thought, 'why not?' The sidewalk turned to dirt path and I found myself deep in a valley with tall modern residence buildings peeking up from the trees on the top of the hill. More paths up the valley to make it back to the city. I come ...