Sunday, December 26, 2010

All I Want For Christmas...

Hopefully a French Bulldog dressed as Santa is under my tree next year... or wherever you put birthday presents under this July... 

Bye Andorra...

7am in France, looking at Andorra (somewhere up there in the mountains). 

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Andorra Part 4...






Not quite sure what owls have to do with Andorra, but I do know that owls are my least favorite animal. 

I love the hand painted tiles that mark each house.








Friday, December 24, 2010

Andorra Part 3...

It was another beautiful day in Andorra; lots of sun, and flurries of snow. I ventured far away from where I had been skiing the past three days, to Grau Roig, and found where they hid all the difficult runs and good skiers. I tried some off piste today as well, since I could actually see the slopes. It only made me realize though that I'm too much of a racer to do it. Icy, groomed slopes are much more my style than powdery nature. 






Thursday, December 23, 2010

Andorra Part 2...

So the weather was actually nice today, and for the first time I realized I was actually in the mountains, and not just skiing in some weird twilight zone where everything was white and wet. Of course, I decided not to take my camera today incase of another downpour on the mountains, since my camera almost got water damage yesterday. Luckily the camera on my phone takes decent pictures. 




Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Andorra Part 1...

So of course there is a big mess going on right now with the European transportation system... of course. So basically I missed my connecting train from Toulouse to l'Hopitalet Prés Andorre, which meant taking a later train. So I finally got as close to Andorra as I possibly could without a car, but it was so late at night the buses had stopped running, and the taxi's wouldn't go out to there. I tried getting a room at the only hotel in town, but the owner told me it was closed, shut the door on me and turned off the light... oh how nice the French can be sometimes. Being the practical person I am though, I made it to the first city in Andorra later that night, and got a room at a hotel. Not my hotel since that was still further away, but at least I was safe and sound. 

Playing around with long exposure rates on the long train ride. 

Basically how it has looked for the past two days on the chair lifts to the top of the mountain. Clouds are something you don't have to deal with when skiing in Minnesota. They also make everything look flat even through the orange goggles, so when skiing you can't see any bumps on the slope.

An all too frequent sight when starting from the top of the mountain. Can't say how many times I have had to just stop because I can't see the ground I am skiing on, let alone the markers to the pistes.

Taking some time to dry off. The temperatures stay above freezing, so the snow melts right away getting you very wet, very quickly.

Of course, the weather is much better when you get below the tree line. 

Trying to leave the mountain on the gondola...

Which of course stopped for 2 and a half hours, just my luck. Also my luck was the fact that my car stopped in the half way station, so I wasn't dangling at some absurd height above rocky ground. At least I could see the people frantically running around trying to fix whatever was wrong. Once at the bottom, the workers told me they would contact me in the next few days to hopefully send me money for this incident. Not that I minded too much since I have no real plans here. Time not really wasted. 

Friday, December 17, 2010

Food...



Gratin Jambon, one of the best gratins I have had so far. 

Raclette, which was oh so delicious. 

I spy... Homer Simpson?


Snow!



Candied apples

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Cold Snap...

I guess there is a little spell of bad weather going around Europe right now. Cold temps, heavy snow, that stuff that Minnesotans live with on a daily basis in the winter. It's been snowing in Paris (much to the complaints of everyone but me), but it never stays on the ground for too long. The temperatures are hovering in the high 30's, aka freezing for the Parisians, but me, I don't mind. 
View of Sacré Coeur from the base of Montmartre near all the fabric stores. Note the heavy snow on the ground causing major delays and cancellations out of Charles de Gaulle airport and the train stations, not to mention the rest of Europe.  

Thursday, December 2, 2010

School Work...

For our final project we were told we had to make something red, and it had to be inspired by the Arman exhibition currently at Pompidou. Unfortunately Arman is not my cup of tea, but the idea of decomposition and destruction that he plays with in his work can easily turn into a story about the dahlia flowers at the Parc Floral de Paris, which does interest me. If art school has taught me one thing, it is how to make up stories about your work just to please other people. 

Inspiration starting point; The dying dahlias.

Initial  sketch of a design. This is just one of 200, 6 of which were chosen for my capsule collection.

Initial draping of the design, front.
Right. 

Left. 

Back.

On Tuesday I have to present my mood board, color story, fabric swatches, and 6 figures along with all my research. I then have two weeks to finish draping my collection, create the patterns, and make them out of muslin. Over break I have to make it out of actual fabric.