Art Every Day Month - Day 8....Behind the Scenes for the Elegant Lady story

The Elegant Lady lived in the times of Renoir and Degas and all their cronies. Before she "moved up" in the world, she hung out with the rest of the artistic crowd, which included theatrical people, dancers and writers along with the painters. During the summer, they would board the train to the country, many to a place known as La Grenouillere, the Frog Pond. This was many of the rustic places along the Seine where Parisians would go to enjoy their summers in the sun, they would don swim suits and swim or they would have boat races. It was a Sunday past time. Many of the Impressionists, were known to hang out here, or also paint scenes here.

Many liked to dine at La Maisson Fournaise, which was the location of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party."

This sketchbook page is my homage to La Grenouillere. The Elegant Lady would just DIE if her society knew she hung out here and flopped around in the crowds in a swim suit or hung out with sweaty men fresh from competing in boat races. She no longer lives in France so that life is behind her....or is it?

This page is also still a work in progress. My sketch/journal pages are layered, I might glue more things on, add gel pen embellishments and other ephemera. I will write in some of the elegant lady story, and just have more fun with it. If this was a painting, I work on it and when I am done, I walk away, but these type pages, I like to see what else I can build them up with. I come back to them at a later time and add more.