I am on a business trip that is taking me around the world. I have spent two weeks in the US (Washington DC, LA and San Diego) and arrived in Paris two Sundays ago. Before I left Sydney, Liz Steel from the Sydney Urban Sketchers had put me in touch with Lydia Velarde from the Urban Sketchers in San Diego, and with Kim Marohn and Marion Rivolier from the Paris Sketchers. So my business trip had also become a global sketching trip.
I had a wonderful visit in San Diego. We sketched both days of
the weekend that I was there - in a quirky nursery near the city centre and in
Balboa Park. Lydia in San Diego makes videos of the Sketcher meetings in San
Diego – so you can see people, the setting and the sketches at these two links:
I arrived in Paris from San Diego on the Sunday morning.
After a quick shower I was ready to sketch. I had a plan to meet up with the
Paris group in the afternoon. It was La Semaine du Dessin (drawing week) and
one of the exhibition sites was the Palais de la Bourse. But rather than paying the entrance fee to see the drawings of the
old masters inside, the Paris Sketchers had planned to meet at a café alongside
the Bourse and sketch the outside – or the surrounds. Somehow most of us never
made it out of the café, but spent a happy (and in my case jet-lagged)
afternoon chatting, drinking and sketching what we could see, including each
other.
Here is my sketch of a nearby building and statue.
Then a week working, and travelling on the RER D each day from and back to my hotel at Gare
de Lyon. This is the view from my hotel window.
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I tried to practice
sketching the travellers on the RER inconspicuously. Here are a couple of
attempts:
Then came Saturday, and another opportunity to sketch with the
Paris Sketchers, this time at Le Musee de la Chasse et de la nature. A very
interesting collection of art, taxidermy, guns… . The polar bear is very
impressive.
And you can have a conversation with the grizzly bear – and
get an answer (I thought there must have been a microphone and speaker – but actually there is a performer "hibernating" inside the stuffed animal for the first 13 days of April! And he is happy to engage in small talk with children, charming).
Thank you Paris Sketchers for a lovely two weekends of
drawing! And especially Kim for connecting me and helping me along via emails
and texts, and general encouragement. Here is the group at a nearby café - with
me holding open last week’s sketch by mistake (oops)
...but we weren’t quite done yet.
Kim took Veronique, Julien, Savath and me to on open evening at La Grande Chaumiere. There was a free live model session to sketch. To my alarm, the model moved constantly to the poetry and music, striking pose after pose in fleeting moments. I just sketched like crazy and hoped – not at all in my comfort zone.
I promised Kim that these would never see the light of day but i have weakened, so here is a selection of my poor attempts to capture the poses and movements. Very hard - but also an interesting challenge.
So I am writing this from the airport in Dubai. I have one more flight to end this month-long journey. I can't wait to be home - but it has been great meeting so many generous and talented people, and making new friends around the world.
à la prochaine!
Lionel
Lionel we loved meeting you and I am delighted learn more about your journey.
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