During our trip to Europe, we went on a hunt for street artists who might be selling their paintings. Surprisingly, they were hard to find. We found many people hawking oils in each of the three cities but the sellers weren’t the artists themselves. I pictured some 12-year old in China slaving away in a windowless factory.

In Paris however, we found an artist named George not only displaying his watercolors, but he was in the middle of painting too. We chatted with him for a bit as we looked through the works. He said one day, when he’s long gone, we might have some valuable works of art. Since Paris was our first stop, we lugged these paintings around Venice and Rome. Finally, we went to get them framed at Michael’s. I stop to look at them every so often. Out of all the baubles and keepsakes we got, these weren’t the most expensive items but they might have been the most worthwhile.