Praeterita

Neocolor water soluble wax pastels in sketchbook On the metro again, a woman sitting diagonally opposite from me. Time of day: evening rush hour. Crowded train. Her face wasn't this colour, I just chose this crayon because it matched the fact that there was something surprising about her face. She really did have such a long nose and jawbone, and her eyes were sunken and tired as if she had been awake for days. She didn't seem that old, but her skin had a sallow, waxy, deathly pallor. She looked like she was carrying a lot of anxiety and troubles. Her hair was long at the sides, and rolled back onto the top of her head in the style of women from the Edwardian era. 

Neocolor water soluble wax crayons A waiter at La Closerie de Lilas, at the eastern end of the Boulevard de Montparnasse. The bistro is famous for its association with several generations of writers and artists, from Paul Fort in the 1890s, Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s, and Gide and Beckett in the post-WWII era. The waiter could have worked at any place in Paris, however, and that's what caught my eye and made me draw him. The crisp white shirt and apron, the black tie and waistcoat, and the high domed forehead made him seem like the distilled essence of Parisian waiter. If you cold walk into the Closerie in any of the eras I mentioned, there would be a fair chance of seeing a waiter who looked just like this. He looks like he might be sleeping on the job in this drawing, but I think he was looking down as he was ringing up a bill at the register. And that reminds me of something: I don't recall many French waiters gazing at their smartphones, even if there was a lull i...

Medium: Neocolor water-soluble wax pastels At a restaurant in Montparnasse, just off the Boulevard de Montparnasse, where three of us went one evening for a faculty meal. A small place with fewer than ten tables, and a waiting list that meant we had to book more than a week in advance. The food was classic French cuisine with some Vietnamese touches. One of the waiters was the chap in this memory-drawing: tall, athletic build, with a beautiful rich burnt umber skin tone, and his head shaved into concentric circles ascending to a curling tuft right on the top of his skull. It's the sort of hairstyle that might look ridiculous on some people, but which mysteriously some people can carry off well. The waiter also smiled a lot, and seemed like a nice person. I can remember him more than the food I ate that night.

I am sitting on the Paris Metro on one of the fold-down seats near the sliding doors. The train is travelling between the Grands Boulevards on the Right Bank, and Denfert-Rochereau on the Left Bank. At one of the stations, the doors open and a woman walks in wearing a coat of expensive looking dark blue cloth with a billowing white cold-repelling collar. She has a string of pearls around her neck, and her face glows with lots of immaculately applied make-up. She sees someone she knows, and her mouth and eyes open wide at the coincidence of meeting a friend or acquaintance at that time of day, in a Metro system that ferries more than four million people around and beneath Paris every day. (Medium: pen, Neocolor water-soluble wax pastels .)

I saw this chap on the Paris Metro, travelling on line 13 between Gaite and Champs Elysees. He boarded the train at Bir Hakeim, the stop closest to the Eiffel Tower. He looked run down and ragged, possibly homeless, but certainly one of the people who hop on and off the metro to beg for money in different carriages. This man didn't do the most common thing you see, which is to give his well-rehearsed hard luck story in a loud voice while he passes along the carriage with an upturned hat in his hand. The man in this drawing was singing a song, I think it was an old chanson like you would hear from the 1950s. I didn't recognize all of the words, but it was something about walking through the rain and being in love, and his voice was exceptionally good, a strong baritone with a nice tone, perfectly in tune. His face was covered in patches of bad skin, like he had been sleeping rough in cold weather, or maybe they were burns. But the voice that came out of that horrible exterior...

During my annual trip to Paris in January, I try to do as much drawing as I can, using neocolor pastels and occasionally pen. On the last two trips (2017 and 2018) I did a lot more drawing from memory rather than observation. There are so many interesting facial types among the people you see in Paris, so I try to fix the most salient parts of their features in my mind, through a series of brief and intense gazes. Then when I get back to the apartment in Montparnasse, I get out the pastels and begin work. This is a new series for my blog, in which I post one of the drawings and try to remember the moment in which I noticed the person. This first one was someone I saw on the Metro, Line 9, when Patty and I went over to the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, near the Palais de Tokyo on the right bank. It was bitterly cold, and this older gentleman entered the metro car having clearly just experienced a blast of the arctic air that was pummeling the city. Despite his woo...