Once at the Clamerey, France American Military Camp, I could not stop sketching. This large open tent encampment felt like it was for a higher rank officer. There was a poster of Charles De Gaulle, and the French flag was on the flag pole. De Gaulle was he French leader in exile during World War II. One man passing through the camp was the spitting image of the French leader in his crisp clean uniform.
For this sketch I had to sit in the direct sun light. I am something of a vampire so I am always concerned about being burnt to a crisp. I put an eraser on the edge of a tree shadow to my left and after a few minutes noticed that the shadow would be moving towards me as I sketched. I decided to bite the bullet and hopefully the shade would reach me before I became a cinder.
A photographer was joking with me in English. He said, “you can pick any color, as long as it is green!” He was right. I almost emptied out my green pan of color on my pallet. My choices were, warm green, cool green dark green and light green.
Another gentleman was admiring what I was doing, and he introduced me to his grandmother. She whispered to me, “magnifique.” Merci, I replied. This was the first French word I picked up. I said it to every person who stopped to make comments that I could not understand. Te son later explained that his grandmother had been just a little girl when the Americans came to liberate the city she was in. She vividly remembers a G.I. giving her a candy bar.
The encampment was on a magnificent old French estate. The building was built of stone and the tiles on the roof looked like they had been there for hundreds of years. There were hints of the oncoming fall. The golden sun light illumined the far trees a rich orange color. Some trees were as dark as a coal mine, and other were bright like a lantern.
By the time this sketch was done, I was getting hungry. I started to wonder if there were any restaurants in the small provincial town. I hadn’t noticed any as I drove in from my hotel down south near Dijon. France. I had tried to book an air B&B in a tent but that booking was interrupted when my bank told me my debit card had been hacked. I drove across France not sure if I wold find a place to stay when I got there. The tent air B&B was full when I got there. I sat in the parking lot of a hotel for several hours trying to get funds to cover hotel expenses. The hotel where I made those calls was completely booked. I was advised to stop down the road and thankfully that hotel had a room where I could camp for the night.