All week long I’ve been drawing Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. I choose this iconic landmark to draw for my post for this week’s @daphxine_art_challenges #happytravelsartchallenge, this week’s theme France. I also choose to focus in on this landmark since I thought it would give me a good to chance to play with perspective a little. I decided to start off by drawing it on graph paper and I followed these step-by-step instructions which I found extremely helpful.

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I was a teenager the first time I saw the Arc de Triomphe in person, and we approached it from the side so we initially saw the side arch. Not knowing we oohed at it and then the bus swung around and we saw the front part and that’s when our oohs became wows. Amazed at its enormity, it is after all the world’s largest triumphal arch.

The line drawing is on watercolor paper and I shied away from completing it with my watercolors as I was unsure of my approach, so I decided to scan and use Photoshop to paint my final. While working in Photoshop I started to think about Ludwig Bemelmans’ beautiful illustrations of the Madeline series. I loved Madeline and remember reading the books in bed staring at the pictures and dreaming of visiting France once day.

Here’s my sketch of the Eiffel Tour.

if you are interested in joining our challenge, check out my DaphXine Art Challenge. Check out more of our challenge art on our Instagram accounts @daphxine_art_challenges, @segalascreatives and @Daphsam.