New Orleans Artist Jon Guillaume

The French Market in New Orleans is one of my favorite places. You can get a cup of fruit, cut up when you order it. You can get alligator sausage (not that I did). You can buy everything from cheap plastic beads to African imports.

And you can watch Jon Guillaume draw.

(from Jon’s website)

The day we talked to him, he was coloring a large piece he’d been working on, using Prismacolor pencils on paper. He showed us the early drafts as well as the first quick sketches in his notebook (I’m kicking myself for not getting a photo of that and for not looking more closely to see if that was, indeed, a Moleskine, all worn and battered). Go here to read his bio and see his work. Here are the four prints I bought.

I love color (and isn’t that a surprise to y’all?), but his black-and-white work is so wonderfully done that I couldn’t resist. (I love this image; I have a pair of water meter earrings from Thomas Mann’s gallery.)

And who could resist this one?

I love this:

And this—I love how he’s captured the moment right after one of the late afternoon showers:

The prints are amazingly affordable, nicely matted, and ready for framing. Go take a look.