Another oil painting!

I realized recently that it had been quite a long time since I'd posted one of my oil paintings of the Seine. And just yesterday, I was doing some sketches down on the quai and remembering how much fun it is. So hopefully there will be plenty more sketches, drawings, paintings and other Seine-inspired work that I can post here over the next few months. It's nice to finally have this warm sunny spring weather we've been waiting so long for! If any of you other Parisians out there are taking advantage of this lovely spring by spending their days making art on the quai, then feel free to submit what you're up to for inclusion in a future blog post. But for now, I humbly offer this painting of mine. I'd love to see some feedback in the comments section. The summer's coming in just a few days and I wish you all a happy one! Hope to see you all along the banks of the Seine!

 

An oil painting of the Seine along the Ile Saint-Louis

by Leslie McAllister

When waters rise...

 

My fascination with the power of rising rivers began on a family trip when I was a kid. My parents took me camping in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Our campsite was right on the banks of the Ammonoosuc River. When we arrived to set up camp, it had been raining and my father told me that the snow was also melting, causing run-off from up in the mountains. When we got there, we were merely alongside a small stream, in the middle of which I remember noticing a large rock. But that rock, which at first had seemed so large, would quickly disappear from view as the small stream grew into a ferocious river in just a few hours. That night I lay in my tent, wondering if tents could float, and had dreams of waking up seaborne, floating off to faraway lands. Now, as an adult, when I see the banks of the Seine disappearing under waves of brown, it awakens that child within me and starts me playfully dreaming. I can close my eyes and see myself floating down the Seine in a tent, en route for some mysterious distant adventure.

 

Here, I've gathered a handful of photos I shot during the Seine's recent high-water season. I hope that they set you to dreaming as well!



 

 

 

  

 

 

A brief video meditation

Here's a short clip I cut together from some video footage I shot on the quai one day. Drop me a line to let me know what you think of it. Or better yet, send in your own videos, photos, art and writing from the riverbanks of Paris!

A watercolor from the left bank

Here's my next contribution to the I'm au Quai, You're au Quai series. This is a watercolor I did one afternoon on the left bank near the Pont Saint-Louis. If you have any paintings, drawings, writings, photos, or other artworks that you did on the quais of Paris, please feel free to send them to me at leslie@lesliemcallister.com .

Welcome to "I'm au Quai, You're au Quai"!

"I'm au Quai, You're au Quai" is a photo/art/writing blog that I have created to share documents of those moments of contemplation, introspection, inspiration and (heaven forbid) creativity that  regularly arise along the banks of the Seine in Paris, France. I often spend my afternoons drawing, taking pictures, or writing on the quai somewhere, and I know that many of my artist and writer friends in this city can say the same. To begin, I will post my own stuff: images, notes, musings, etc that I have harvested and compiled from my many quai-side sessions. But my hope is that my friends and colleauges, and eventually new friends and colleagues, will submit their own work to me for inclusion in this blog. Feel free to send any visual or verbal art, as long as it either was created on the quai in Paris or features the quai as its subject matter. And for now, while I wait for those submissions to start pouring in, I will update every few days with some more stuff of my own.

Contact me at leslie@lesliemcallister.com