City Slicker

City Slicker

“City Slicker”
A glossy raven at Jaures.
240 x 260 mm. November 2017

“City Slicker” – noun – informal, derogatory: a person with the sophistication and values generally associated with urban dwellers.

The opportunistic raven is nobody’s fool.  He is sleek, healthy, clever, and manages just fine thank you very much in the heart of the city.  Not unlike Fagin from “Oliver“, he is “reviewing the situation” when I observe him.   Our encounter is in Jaures – a less salubrious area of Paris than a tourist might want to visit.  However not being a tourist, but a flaneuse (a female who saunters around observing society) I find myself there.

It is business as usual for this feathered city slicker – while I make a hasty retreat back down the more genteel (and safe) path beside Canal St. Martin.

 

Enchanted April

Enchanted April

“Enchanted April” – spring in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont.
330 x 355 mm. November 2017.

In April 2012 I visited Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in Belleville.  On that particular spring morning, Paris was hidden under a veil of mist.

I love the poetry of mist – where some objects reveal themselves while others are  mysteriously obscured.

Later in 2012 I made a drawing from that visit to the park.  It was from the same source photo as the new drawing.  I called the 2012 drawing “Après l’hiver”.

“Après l’hiver”
2012

Why have I just made another version of the drawing?   I wanted to do a larger work, using a less cropped version of the photo.  I was curious to see what would happen if I used  Sennelier oil pastels as well as coloured pencils. Drawn five and a half years apart, two very different drawings have resulted.

The title of my new drawing is taken from the 1922 novel “Enchanted April”  by Elizabeth von Arnim.