We’re getting bonus summer here.  Maybe it’s payback for the lousy June and July we had 🙂  In any case, I’ve been taking advantage of it and doing a lot of walking and sketching.

I found myself on Rue St. Jean, one of the iconic streets that lead from the old city through, coincidentally, the St. Jean Gate.  A few blocks from the old city is an old church and an accompanying cemetery with headstones that date back into the 1700s.  This was the ‘edge of town’ cemetery back then, I suppose.

It has become a park, as the graves were all moved at some point, though many of the original gravestones remain, it’s where downtown people go to eat lunch and enjoy the trees and park benches.  I was going to draw some of the old head stones, but as I rounded the end of the church I saw this store across the street from the church.  I’m sure I’ve walked under those awnings a bunch of times but I’ve never noticed them.  From the cemetery the store was hard to miss and I found the place really cute.  So I drew it.

ps – I was asked the other day what watercolors I use.  I use Daniel Smith and love them.  I wish they’d pay me to say that but they don’t.  You can get their color chart here.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black