Painting Portraits at a wedding at Chateau de la Tour, Chantilly

July has been quite the month. First the terrific surprise of seeing my watercolors in the Paris Metro. Then playing performance artist at a champagne tasting painting bottles and pastries onsite. When MING from my pool asked if I'd like to paint guests at a Chinese wedding at CHATEAU DE LA TOUR in Chantilly, I thought why not? Ask me to do the tour de France this month and I'd have said OUI!

But how to dress rehearse for this event? I needed a sample piece to show the groom.

First I bought a bunch of French wedding magazines - useless. Then I sketched guests at Duchess Megan's wedding like Amal Clooney...getting nowhere fast.

Have you seen KILLING EVE, staring actress Sandro Oh. Thank you Sandra for getting me on the right track.

How to draw Chinese men? Luckily I found a story on China's top 10 billionaires! Perfect sketch material. Love you Google.

Voila my wedding guest sample watercolor of Sandra Oh + billionaire. We decided a small vignette of the chateau should be on every portrait and they could be painted ahead of time. 25 chateaux drawings later, once on the premises on Tuesday I realized this was not going to work.

First of all it was a morning brunch the day after the wedding. Everyone was dressed casually in shorts and polo shirts. Did I mention it was a 'destination wedding'? Half the guests had come in from Shanghai. Sebastien, my taxi driver from the train station told me he was taking many back to CDG later. Oh.

The red striped awning became my portrait setting. I simply used the backs of the prepared sketches.

When you're a performance artist you have to improvise seat-of-the-pants style.

And perform and entertain. Guests gathered round my little table watching me draw every line like I was a magician.

I couldn't possibly say, Hmmm..you're standing in my light. I just kept drawing.

And prayed a little...

They seemed to like them fortunately

The bride and groom are on the lower left. Doesn't he look like the Mongolian warrior, Genghis Khan? Chinese men are handsome and have the most fabulous hair and haircuts! I still have to tell you about my Friday watercolor class held in my studio, but that's another July story. Meanwhile I'm celebrating. I survived painting wedding portraits. You can get the Champagne of your choice among other Paris goodies on Etsy. Thanks for reading Parisbreakfast.  If you liked this post please share. Bon Dimanche