My favorite thing about Giverny besides the yellow kitchen in Monet’s house and flowers infinite and lilly pads with crowded onlookers snapping eager and beloved photos, was the amount of people I saw drawing and painting. I realize that maybe folks should find more places to draw and paint than just a legendary artist’s retreat, and I realize most people probably expected solitude, but I felt captivated by a different sort of pilgrimage I was sharing with fellow art lovers. I especially loved the class of small children I saw drawing. I joined the bandwagon, the communion of would-be artists painting. After-all I too had brought my sketchbooks and my watercolors. I too snapped a photo of a lilly pad.