Our last full day in NOLA dawned cold and clear with a strong wind from the northwest that robbed the warmth from the sunshine. However, that morning we spent touring the Beauregard-Keyes house (Keyes rhymes with eyes) and then sketching in the walled gardens. The walls made it possible for us to sketch without being totally miserable!
The house is named after its two most celebrated owners, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard and author, Ms. Frances Parkinson. We had an absolutely delightful guide and learned a good deal about what it might have been like to live back in the mid-1900's in New Orleans.
[I recently had someone ask "Don't you ever make mistakes!?!" Take a close look at the page above and you'll note one colossal mistake—the bricks....I drew what I THOUGHT I saw there rather than what I OBSERVED to be there. To downplay the wrong perspective, I washed some darker color over the bricks so that they are less noticeable. So the answer is "YES. I make mistakes. I also do what I can do downplay or correct them and move on. Lastly, I seldom point out mistakes because most of the time, if we don't say anything, no one notices anyway!"]
Other shots of the house and gardens:
We took off for lunch and then spent the first part of the afternoon doing some shopping (purchasing pralines) and we then gathered to go to the Germaine Cazenave Wells Mardi Gras Museum at Arnaud's Restaurant:
The museum houses dresses worn by Ms. Wells, who is Count Arnaud's daughter. She is the one woman who has presided over more Krewes than any other. There were also outfits worn by her mother, daughter and the Count as the King of Mardi Gras. It was a very interesting and close-up look at the opulence and details of the Mardi Gras dress of yesteryear as contrasted against our visit to Mardi Gras World on our first day.
Our evening finished off with a fabulous meal at Arnaud's. The restaurant harkens back to another era where you wore your best to go to dinner, the door was held for women and the chair pulled back. Men wore jackets and the ladies were dressed to the nines. (It's more relaxed now, but only by a little bit!)
It was a wonderful way to wrap up our week in NOLA with a fabulously wonderful group of sketchers!
[I have a few more pages to share (that are out of order) where I've done a few different and fun things to change them up a bit!]
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| St. Francis in the Beauregard-Keyes Walled Gardens Sketched on location |
[I recently had someone ask "Don't you ever make mistakes!?!" Take a close look at the page above and you'll note one colossal mistake—the bricks....I drew what I THOUGHT I saw there rather than what I OBSERVED to be there. To downplay the wrong perspective, I washed some darker color over the bricks so that they are less noticeable. So the answer is "YES. I make mistakes. I also do what I can do downplay or correct them and move on. Lastly, I seldom point out mistakes because most of the time, if we don't say anything, no one notices anyway!"]
Other shots of the house and gardens:
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| Interior Courtyard behind the house |
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| Cold, but determined sketchers in the walled gardens |
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| Resurrection Fear growing on the wall of the garden |
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| Sketched on Location |
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| The dress is encrusted with beading and other embellishments. The train is made of velvet and trimmed with real fur—it had to weigh a ton!! |
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| Intrepid sketchers sitting on the floor after a mishap with a broken stool |
It was a wonderful way to wrap up our week in NOLA with a fabulously wonderful group of sketchers!
[I have a few more pages to share (that are out of order) where I've done a few different and fun things to change them up a bit!]
