Mixed emotions about the Yellow Vests and that pesky Arc de Triomphe
Creating the Paris Letter for this month was tricky. First, I wanted it to feature the Arc de Triomphe, which has been circumnavigated by the Yellow Vest protesters for a couple months (and counting?). The problem is that I've never really liked this particular Paris monument. Why? When there are the lacy steel lines of the Eiffel Tower...
The bulbous dome of Opéra...
The maze of Montmartre...
The reflective magic of the Seine...
The je ne sais quoi of the Paris café...
The Paris café always feels like anything could happen.The Arc de Triomphe is a blocky Lego of mixed emotions.
At mostly every angle...
Yes, it's about triumph, but it's also about conflict, which bums me out these days when there is so much world anger out there. But I had a concept in mind and I wanted to explore it in a Paris Letter. So I set out for inspiration.
Eugène Galien-Laloue was known for painting bustling city life.
Naturally, this led me down a rabbit hole of Google searches for his work. I love his fashion, reflections, trees, and the fact that the monument is in the background, not the foreground. Inspired, I set out to begin.
And added paint...
Things were coming along. I wasn't totally loathing our monument. Added more paint which turned out okay on the monument but became framed by tearful, black bushes. NOT the plan.
Bushes out, some conflicty looking fire clouds in the back, a possible foreshadowing of the sad boulangerie explosion? How much more can Paris take?
Added a nice little stamp I found in my usual searches around Paris where I look for nothing at all in particular and come home with bags full of what Marie Kondo would call "Miscellaneous."
Settled on this hue...
Wrote out the thoughts I've been mulling all month (A Paris Letter really does take a month to concoct)... and voila...
It's darker than in real life. One must factor in the odd things that happen when one must actually print the thing. You can get it in the shop. A great gift for anyone who adores the Arc de Triomphe. Military buffs perhaps. Or Lego aficionados.
