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Illustrator

Plein air in Provence

Joel and I took a trip late last year to Provence, in France. After working non-stop on the book, we felt we deserved a reward for all our work. Off we went to the land of Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cézanne, to experience some of that famous Provençal light that they were obsessed with (it really is a thing). It was beautiful to experience the area in late fall when everything looked extra golden and the tourists were few and far between.

We also had pretty great weather for plein air sketching, the only tricky part this time was how the sun set so early in November, so we had to plan our time accordingly.

vue de Marseille
Scène typiquement française
Notre gîte à les Huguets

My plein air setup

En plein plein air (hehe) à Goult

Local plein air sketching in Perth

I’ve been enjoying going once a week with a sketching club to sketch various locations in Perth, ON. We only live 30 minutes away from one of the most picturesque towns in the province, so we’re very fortunate to be able to have lots of locations to choose from. Here are few of my sketches from the past few weeks.

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The McMillan Building in Perth, ON – used to be a Carnegie Library.
sketch art travel painting watercolor painting travel print travel sketch plein air Watercolor sketch Urban sketch perth ontario art outdoor sketching urban sketching outdoor painting Chantal Bennett canadian illustrator
One of the lovely bridges in Stewart Park in Perth, ON.
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The old shoe factory in Perth, ON – used to be a Brown’s shoe manufacturing plant.

Sketching in Iceland

Joel and I recently rented a campervan and toured around the Westfjords and a bit of the north of Iceland. We had a fun trip, but the weather was definitely not conducive to plein air sketching (rain and gale-force winds) but we managed to get four paintings in regardless.

Prints are available in my Etsy shop

Dorset and the Jurassic Coast – plein air sketching

Joel and I finally had the chance to go back to one of our favourite destinations: England! We spent two weeks there in total, the first 5 days in London and the next 10 days touring the New Forest then heading into Dorset, the Jurassic Coast and ending up in Lyme Regis. We were excited to get back into plein air sketching again (it’s always more fun when you’re on a trip).

We had an absolutely amazing time! We had two weeks of sun and beautiful spring weather. It did us a world of good 🙂

Prints are available to purchase in my Etsy shop.

Corfe Castle view from the village of Corfe.
Corfe Castle
Easily our most ambitious subject; the Helter Skelter in Weymouth.
Working on the Helter Skelter sketch.
Thomas Hardy’s Cottage.
Joel and I at Thomas Hardy’s cottage.
view of Lyme Regis.
Beautiful day for sketching in Lyme Regis.
On our way back to London, we stopped in at Monticute House with its “wibbly wobbley” hedges.
Another view of Elizabethean mansion Monticute House.
And of course, a trip to England is incomplete without the requisite afternoon tea, this one at the Dalloway Terrace in London.

Cantons de L’Est sketches

The pandemic ruined our international travel plans for 2020, but Joel and I were determined to actually go somewhere because we needed a vacation really badly. So we decided to go on a road trip to les Cantons de L’est region in Québec (also known en anglais as the Eastern Townships). We had a lovely time: did some plein-air painting, ate a lot of great food, visited several breweries, went antiquing, went to Foresta Lumina (check it out, it’s so cool) and generally had a great time.