I wanted to write about the Maillol museum and the Kandinsky show that was at the Centre Pompidou, but both seem to defeat my ability to align words in a meaningful way. So for the moment I’m posting a few sketches drawn here and there, mostly for no particular reason besides resting my feet.
- A bit of the Louvre. Sketched towards the end of the same day we visited the Musée Mailllol. The sun had come out and with it the heat so we rested our poor feet in the shade of the building while watching the always incredible, unstopping mass of
antstourists heading towards and away from their goal; in this case the Louvre’s glass pyramid. Isn’t it great, the joy of being on vacation! - This lady was also sketched outside that same station but circumstances had moved us to a bench on the Bvrd Arago, corner Rue Du Faubourg Saint-Jaques, so I added the view I had there. I never got closer to the church and can’t find a name for it either. (?)
- Don’t remember exactly where the Café Cordi was but they had space on the terrace and Guinness on tab so what more could you ask for? There was a weird decorative mural inside with a cafe terrace scene in which a bunch of rosy cheeked, freshly released from school kids generally raised hell in front of a few wide eyed adults…
- We walked through the Montparnasse cemetery on our way to the catacombs and so that is where this sketch is from. The root of a nearby tree had pushed the whole base of this relatively fancy tombstone up and out of alignment. Nature, the original rebel…
- Being both slow to start and not in a hurry, it was too late to visit the catacombs by the time we got there. But since it just so happens that the day before we had waited at the Gare de Denfert-Rochereau nearby for A to join us, here’s a sketch of a couple of folks passing by.
- The Église Saint Merri had some of the better gargoyles so I couldn’t resist drawing them. I love the way they sit on the building’s gutter and totally defeat gravity, they look perfectly at ease and in balance. The first two are from the north side of the church, the second sketch from the front. It had what looked like a child crouching beneath it, holding the beast’s ankles, but my eyesight isn’t what it used to be so I hope I got that right.
- A small textile and clothes market on the Allée Georges Besse from the entrance to the Edgar Quinet metro station which is just north of the Montparnasse cemetery; which is where Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) is buried. His deservedly famous “The Kiss” can be seen over a nearby grave and apparently he carved other gravestones for other artists but unfortunately a quick web search didn’t reveal much information about that..
- The afore mentioned view from Montmartre.
BTW: I sketch with a small Pentel brush pen, in this case in one of those winsor newton black ringed notepads (size A5), not the best paper, far from it, but convenient.