LANGUEDOC SKETCHBOOK no.2

Last visit I found enough inspiration around my wee town of St.Pons de Thomieres to fill a sketchbook, so this time around I decided to journey along the valley of the Jaur river which flows from it's source in St.Pons through Riols -

 

Next town along is Premian

 

 

In between is the little village of Ardouane

 

My favourite 'Aquamate' pen has expired and they no longer seem to be produced so I haven't yet found a pen with just the right amount of 'bleed' so on the whole I wasn't as pleased with this sketchbook as I was with the last one, (a case of a bad workman blaming his tools?)

And some of the watercolours were very ropey -

 

This time I'm blaming the paper quality, not proper watercolour paper so wet on wet didn't really

happen.

 

The next village is St.Etienne D'Albagnan.

 

 

- with a very landlocked boat and a rather jazzy post office -

 

 

And the final town I got along to was Olargues (about 20minutes drive from St.Pons)

 

 

Olargues is one of the 'Plus beau villages de France' and it does look impressive from the road, up close it does have some lovely little ruelles but like all French towns there's a lot of very, very shabby chic decay and then the odd 6o's/70's eyesore thrown in.

 

 

Again I'm blaming the pen, this needs some wash to give light and shade to help figure out the perspective. It was in fact the only dull day of the trip with tiny bits of drizzle every now and again, all us tourists around the town were constantly pulling on and off pac a macs. Too hot with them on and a bit damp without. There are some talented artists in Olargues and I'll around to blogging about them later.

 

A little bit of colour to end on, another of my 'Postcards from France'