A very nice day.

Yesterday was a very nice day, with something special happening. In the morning, I went to BHV to purchase some colored pencils for a friend. I had a conversation (in French!) with a young man who was choosing pencils for a class he was taking, making decisions about what colors to buy. After lunch, we set off to buy some souvenir tee-shirts, which a friend had asked for, and on the way, I spotted a poster for an exhibit and was very taken by it's design. It was so "alive" and joyful. We went into the exhibit, which was in a small gallery inside of a courtyard we'd never been in before, on the Ile St. Louis. We loved the drawings, small illustrations, larger pieces, very colorful and happy. We met the artist, Wilhelm Scholte, and told him how much we liked his work. He then gave me one of his books! I was so surprised and so happy. I felt like crying. We talked about artists, like Blechman, Cy Twombly, Tomi Ungerer, people he'd met and we knew of. I felt like he'd touched my heart, and I guess he had! We left the gallery in a very wonderful state of mind, heading to the souvenir shop by Notre Dame that has the best prices on tees.
After that we headed over to the left bank, walked along the Seine until we came to Quai Voltaire and Sennelier. Sennelier has pigments and makes paints for artists and is the most amazing tiny shop where you can get anything an artist needs or wants. We bought some very dark, soft graphite pencils, and two beautiful and very expensive colored pencils. Just two colors! They cost 3,89 € but the color is so amazingly dense. (Andrea, you know what we mean about this shop!)

Later we went by the Gallery on Isle St. Louis and gave the artist a packet of Chuck's cards and one of my small collages. He gave us his address and phone number. Again, we were very touched by this experience, to say the least.