Faerye Tales

So yes, I took my folding chair, my wonderful Japanese fountain pens and my watercolors, and i went for it. Of course a few people looked at me funny, sitting there on the sidewalk and obviously doing something, but soon enough, they just ignored me (which suited me perfectly, in that case). Never underestimate the ability of Frenchies to ignore the others! I got the pen sketch first, the owner of the pressoir went next to me, but he was only getting his car that was parked on the "champs de foire" behind me and went in, ignoring me totally), then i took a reference picture, because it was getting late in the afternoon and i was afraid I couldn't get a good color reference if i waited too long. And here we go: Of course the lettering was a bummer, but I breathed evenly, trying to focus on drawing those letters, and forgetting they were letters... and it worked! "Le vieux pressoir means "the old press" and it was used to press apples to make cider

So yesterday I decided to try out my brand new Sailor fude 40° fountain pen, and go sketch, as the weather was nice and sunny... I packed a few things (including watercolors) and hit the road to end up in Dampierre en Yvelines and try to sketch its lovely Mansard castle (there is a hill in front of the castle, that allows to get a nice view). The tourists were swarming the place, but the rather steep hill gave me just muffled sound and a nice feeling of activity without getting all the inconvenience of a crowd, so i had a really nice moment. I began sketching and suddenly heard a buzzing noise, as if a hundred bees were swarming at me: it was a swarm of vespas! They aligned their vespas in front of the castle, got a flag out and took a zillion souvenir photos! I HAD to take a picture as I suspected they wouldn't stay long enough for me to include them into my sketch (and i was so right, as they hit the road again just afterI took my photo, as one of them mentioned beer would b