The picture above is the base image used to create the Louvre art design. The Louvre is located at 99 Rue de Rivoli, Paris, France 75001. Click on the picture to see the abstract version in my shop.
The Louvre reminds of the Great Pyramids in Egypt in a way but in glass. This place is huge! I mean… really huge!! I only scratched an infinitesimal surface during my visit to this wonderful museum. I heard that it takes weeks to see everything in the museum and I believe it! I had a map to help navigate the museum and I still was lost when trying to find the Mona Lisa. Then again, it doesn’t take much for me get lost. You definitely need a map! There’s dozens of rooms!
First, let’s talk about the beauty! The architecture in Paris is jaw dropping. It was like being sent back to a renaissance period. The larger glass pyramid was surrounded by I think three mini pyramid scattered around the area. There’s one directly in front of the larger pyramid. In a lot of pictures I only see the one pyramid and I was slightly surprised to see the mini pyramids. The surrounding buildings in the courtyard looked like a huge castle. It was so grand… I… don’t know what else to say other than being blown away by the sight. The Eiffel Tower and The Louvre were two places I wanted to visit on my birthday and this place was so magnificent.
I started my journey to the Louvre after visiting the Eiffel Tower and taking a brief rest at the hotel. I created a map for my walk to Louvre, starting from the Pantheon. It was about 2 miles (1.7 miles) I was prepared! I wanted make stops to take photos of landmarks along the way because I knew I couldn’t visit every attraction. On my birthday heading to the Louvre, I highlighted the Pantheon and Notre Dame as places to take photos and make designs. I did make a design for Notre Dame but as mentioned on the main album page, I don’t think it’s on par with the rest of the album so it’s not in the video but you can take a look at it in my shop. I had some ok pictures of the Pantheon but nothing great so I made an executive decision to not make a design for that landmark. I would so love another chance to do this album again but with better photos.
If you haven’t read previous posts, my process is simple for the most part. I use a photo of subject, so in this case it would be the Louvre Museum, as my base, basically my canvas. Then I add my drawing. For this album I made digital drawings in an app but I normally use pencil drawing and upload them to my computer to add to the base. It’s almost the same thing, I use a pen made drawings on my phone. After I add the drawing to the base then I start to blend and make my design. I use many different effects, textures, and layers to create my art. If this video album is the first video you
My primary focus was just to visit this beautiful place take a couple of pictures and then look for the Mona Lisa. However, after my visit to the Rodin Museum, I was intrigued to discover more sculptures and wanted to see as many as I could while on my way to the Mona Lisa. There were quite a few that I love such as the Four Captives (pic above) and Sleeping Faun. I made a design for the latter but it’s not featured in the video album. I do love it but I think the colors and overall look of the design don’t fit the vibe of the video. It’s in my shop if you want to take a look at it.
I want to talk about my walk to the Louvre. It was another magical experience that I hope I never forget it. Following the map, after I left the Pantheon, towards the end of the block, I turned the corner and instantly was transported in a dream. Looking back, it the whole block looked like this one dream I had when I was being pulled by a few friends and we were running in the streets of Paris. It was wild. However, it was more then that the architecture and the skies, the sight was just overwhelmingly beautiful to me. I don’t know what the building was called but I literally stood still for a second to soak in the beauty. I am a terrible writer. I know this while writing about this album but these feelings on many levels are indescribable. I know natives and people who live there would probably think I’m just a some ignorant, naive tourist. I mean… I get it. I come from a big city with popular attractions, so I can understand. I think the taxi driver was laughing at me as I was taking photos inside the taxi on my first day. I didn’t understand everything he was saying but I heard the tourist word drop a few times. I definitely look at tourists differently after visiting Paris that’s for sure! I was just so far in the clouds of dreamland and it didn’t help that everything except for some people lived up to the dream.
I would love to go back. I know I would have a rough year or two but I want to challenge myself and see if I could actually live in Paris. I would love to explore and have walks like the one I had to the Louvre every day. Another magical walk I had was from Sacre Coeur to Palais Garnier. I planned that one too and it was so beautiful. Vanilla skies the whole time… Perfect because after the rain the skies turned into this vanilla hue and I swear I thought I was in a different dimension of time. I never felt so happy and in awe then in those moments. It was like bites of perfection with some sprinkles of negative crap along the way but the good stuff was out of this world!
I talked about my time inside the Louvre and trying to find the Mona Lisa design on Mona. So let me jump into the design now. Let me first say that I’m writing these posts out of sync. The only posts written right after I made the design are the first four made in 2022. Second, I mentioned on Eiffel that L’Age Mûr was the hardest design to make. Thinking about this one, I change my mind! I literally had to start over on this one and I rarely do that! I hate starting over and I try to avoid doing that at all costs! I put in a lot of time in every design. It’s rare that I finish in a few hours as of late. It’s been taking me days, weeks, and sometimes months with a few designs in this album. I think I was heading in the right direction but at some point the blends became chaotic. I didn’t know how to fix it so I went to rotating mirror to try to save my work from becoming unusable and that made it worse! I didn’t know what to do. I was getting really frustrated. At this point I was close to end of making all the design in my album. This was the last one. I already started working on Eiffel and I felt that I was close to finished on that one. So… one weekend I just decided that I had to start over because I wasn’t going to abandon this design. I’m so happy that I started over. I ended up making something that was 10x better then where I was initially was going with the design.
However… Funny thing, this was the only design with the landscape resolution but I forgot to reduce the size to accommodate my video album. I didn’t realize this until too late and I had to squeeze the design in a smaller resolution that doesn’t mesh well with the video specs. I’m only mentioning it because you will notice a slight difference between the original version that’s in my shop and the one in the video. It’s not a big difference but I think it’s noticeable. I’m literally sighing right now at all the mistakes I made with this album. It was nightmare to complete but I am happy that I’m done. There’s lots of purple in this design and I love it! I love each design in this album. I love this journey. In beginning I hated purple and now I love working with the color. I love color and it fills me with joy to work on this album. Paris is beautiful and I hope you love my album. Thanks for reading close to 1500 words!
Credits
Programs used: Paintshop Pro and Adobe After Effects
Design Base: Photo taken of The Eiffel Tower and a digital abstract drawing I created.
Art Design created by me (Katherine Barnett|BeatnikBlends)
Click here to view Louvre in my shop.