Sketching with Watercolor at the Medici Fountain in Paris

In Paris final month I did some sketching at just one of my most loved places, the Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens.

This is a minimal online video preview of me sketching. The comprehensive 10-minute movie sharing the system of building these two sketches is a free bonus class offered to my atelier Associates on the Courses webpage.

The statues on the fountain are by Auguste Ottin, and represent the big cyclops Polyphemus, in bronze, getting the sea-nymph Acis with her human lover, Galatea, in white marble. In the Greek myth, jealous Polyphemus kills Acis, so Galatea transforms her lover into an immortal river spirit.

The fountain and grotto were designed for Marie de’ Medici’s Still left Bank palace, made in the 1620’s. In 1811 the fountain was restored and moved to its latest site, and the statues were additional at that time.

I first learned the fountain on my large university journey to France, in 1988. I sat and sketched the sculptures on that journey as nicely, in a long-lost sketchbook sad to say. I go to the fountain each time I return to Paris considering that then.

This is a different watercolor sketch I did previous summer time at my kitchen desk:

Drawing Materials
Blackwing drawing pencil
Blackwing prolonged position sharpener
General’s white chalk pencil
Kneaded eraser
Stillman & Birn Nova Trio Series Toned Softcover Sketchbook

Watercolor Elements
Arches watercolor block
Watercolor palette in brass by TirraLyra

Watercolor tin pans by TirraLyra
Watercolor purple sable travel brushes by Rosemary Brushes
Collapsible tin water cup by Fulangpa
Guache: Zinc white, Winsor & Newton
Daniel Smith Additional Wonderful Watercolor Tube shades:
Uncooked Umber
Indian Yellow
Quinacridone Rose
Cerulean Blue
Chromium Green Oxide