After a week in Paris, Proctor's European Art Classroom Winter 2018 group returned to the familiar streets of Aix-en-Provence  and welcomed visiting parents (and aunts and uncles) to their home in the south of France. As the group shared their life on Euro filled with painting, exploring, and sucking the marrow out of the experiences laid before them, Grace '18 reflects below on the past week studying abroad. 

Grace '18:

Returning to Aix-en-Provence, our home, makes me fulfilled and comfortable. Back to our accustomed routines and it’s familiar to me to hang out in our small town after classes.

Our group was invited by  Tina (Boomer Vasquez's '17 aunt) to her vineyard in Besse-sur-Issole where we were treated to an elaborate wine tasting experience. Following the visit, I was well informed of the complicated processes in making white wine, rosé and red wine.

We went wine tasting, not a typical field trip for high school students, as we experienced the exquisite and pleasant smell, the mild taste on the tongue, and a little sweet aftertaste of the white wine.

Lead by the terrier dog, Whiskey...

and the black chow, Ian (lovely dogs), we explored an amazingly vast field where the grapes took root and blossomed each year before becoming the wine we had tasted earlier.

After returning to Aix, during studio time at night, I imitated Claude Monet’s masterpiece “Woman with Parasol Umbrella Facing Left” which I found attractive in Musée d’Orsay. This painting quickly became my favorite artwork that I have done so far.

Yesterday, during family weekend, we went to the Miramas-le-Vieux and St Chamas-pont Flavien with visiting parents.

Even though Sophie, Dani, Paloma, and I were “orphans”, we still enjoyed moments chatting with other parents about life in Aix and our trip to Paris.

A trip to visit Dolores Solomon’s art galleries and studio in Miramas was filled with great masterpieces: abstract paintings, landscapes, watercolors, sketches, and sculptures.

My favorite artwork was an abstract oil painting done by painting knifes. It is enriched with blue and green, and the highlight of yellow and orangish-red caught my eyes immediately.

Staying in a beautiful scenery spot at Miramas for a picnic, most of us sketched the mountains far away, accompanied with a pure blue sea.  Being in such a fairytale place, I immersed myself in the sun for more than half an hour.

We were supposed to set up our easels and paint the 400 B.C. Roman bridge: Pont Flavien, but the incessant cold wind only let us to sketch for 20 minutes.

Nothing can stop our journey in Euro; nothing can stop our spirit in making art, like that same non-stopping wind that drove us from Pont Flavien. We can never wait for tomorrow to come.