We'll always have Paris

It seems hard to believe at the moment, but someday we will be able to travel again, and Paris will still be there waiting for us. Paris is as locked down as the rest of the world right now, with very strict restrictions on movement and travel. In January this year I stood high on a windy  Montmartre hill, trying to catch the sense of space and distance as the city gives way to the hills beyond. As I stood there I watched a couple of residents enter the beautiful building at top left with its leafy mantle - if you have to stay put, I imagine that is a very nice confinement.  

My scene, as always, starts with the original black and white drawing. My first steps with the digital color process I use is to set basic blocks of foundation color, not so different from conventional media. One of the meditative 'tasks' of this way of working is when I begin to cut and shape those basic blocks to define shapes into specific architectural features and styles. In this case, I wanted to coax out the 'Paris-ness' of the neighborhood - the details of the roofs, the chimneys, the iconic window railings - while also accentuating the precipitous fall of the Montmartre landscape.

Part of the pleasure of Paris, no matter the 'quartier' or neighborhood, is the sense of unified, often Haussmann-derived, elegance, peppered with quirky minutiae that make each building its own source of aesthetic joy. Building materials vary - limestone, brick, stucco - to give a play of color and texture to any random scene. Montmartre was once, not so long ago, a village outside Paris proper - there are still glimpses in the simpler houses, like the white one on the left side beyond the bigger brick house.
I'll have this scene in my International Series soon, and hope to have it as part of my Paris collection of prints at the Slow Galerie in Paris as soon as the world opens up again.
Please leave a comment - I'd love to hear your thoughts.