Postcard from Paris: A sketchbook panorama of the City of Light
Serendipity, the happy accidents when you find something of value that you weren’t looking for, abound here.
My latest unsought discovery came in the aptly named and elegant La Grand Epicerie in the 7th District. It makes my Publix supermarket in St. Petersburg, Florida, almost seem like a convenience store.
It offers, among its two floors and a maze of aisles overflowing with choices, a poisonnerie or fish market, with fresh seafood plates you eat at high tables in view of an ice-encased bounty from the sea — lobster tails, farm-raised rainbow trout, prawns, clams and mussels.
It was there that I spotted a man sketching in a notebook. I stopped to admire — and inquire, yet another chance to cultivate my sense of wonder that’s on fire in this city full of wonders on every street.
The man busy drawing was Singaporean KimPen Pang, far from home in Tasmania, Australia, on a global journey with his cheery and equally friendly Aussie partner, Michael O’Connor.
KimPen Pang, me and Mimi Andelman:
KimPen is a veterinary assistant back home, but he has the eye and hand of a gifted artist.
He let me flip through and photograph some of his sketches. We’ve seen many places he has drawn, but never through his keen eyes.
KimPen sketches with a black fine-tip pen that bends as he wishes. Later he adds watercolor wash.
Describing Paris with words is a challenging task, but anyone can try. To visually render the sights takes a special gift.
Here is a gallery from KimPen Pang’s sketchbook, reprinted with his kind permission.
1. Gilded columns in a church in the Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés Paris:
A park in the Place des Vosges:
My photo of a camera obscura in the Paris police museum, used by pioneering police officer Alphonse Bertillon for crime scene photos in the 19th century.
The same object as seen through the artist’s eye:
Au Père Louis Restaurant
Merci, KimPen!