Pages

Wednesday 25 March 2015

Figure drawing in Stockholm

During my stay in Stockhom, I met with Nina Johansson who invited me to a figure drawing session.

I was thrilled for I very rarely have the occasion to attend one.

The model was very experienced and we started with poses alternating between 5 and 10 minutes...


 

 ... followed by quick 2 minute poses. I had a lot of fun with these shorter ones.




We ended with a couple of longer poses again.


She had a very interesting face, so I tried to make her portrait in-between poses, specially during the longer stretches. I didn't quite manage to capture her features, though.


Anyway, I had a lot of fun and wish I could do this more often. Thank you again, Nina, for taking me and, of course, for the delicious dinner!

Thursday 19 March 2015

Sketchcrawl in Esch-Belval

A few weeks ago, we organized a sketchcrawl in Esch-Belval with the Luxembourg Sketchers.

We were lucky to have Olga, a local sketcher from Esch, with us as our guide.

I was pleasantly surprised to see about 10 people turn up at our meeting point. Our group is getting bigger and bigger!

Our first stop was around les Hauts Fourneaux, the blast furnace, in Belval. This structure represents Belval's industrial heritage and is now open to the public.

Hauts fourneaux
Just a tiny part of the ancient blast furnace
Today, the Belval site is constantly expanding and its regeneration programme's ambition is to turn the ancient industrial site into a large scientific and cultural centre, with new offices, appartments, a busy music venue (Rockhal), a university and many public administrations moving there.

Olga took us to the high school from where we had a great view on the whole site. It is a perfect place to grasp the magnitude of the works being undertaken there.

I am very curious to see how Belval develops in the future.

Belval
Cranes everywhere
 

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Sketchcrawl with LUCA at Villa Vauban

Last month, the Luxembourg Center for Architecture (LUCA) organised a sketchcrawl at Villa Vauban.

We were blessed with great weather and many people turned up. It was a lot of fun.

This time I felt a bit less daunted about drawing the building. After last time's sketching session with Leen there, I guess I'm starting to know the building a bit better.

Villa Vauban
Playing with contrasts
This was a great opportunity to meet new sketching enthusiasts, increase our small group of usual sketchers.

Portraits
Zeta and another sketcher
We finished the afternoon with a nice drink & draw, one of my favourite parts of any sketchcrawl.

@ Weschtesgaart
@ Weschtesgaart
I think we'll be collaborating more with LUCA in the future, which is a very exciting prospect.

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Stockhom - part 2

The rest of my trip to Stockholm was spent between walking and visiting some more museums.

The Vasa museum was one of the most interesting, in particular for sketching. The Vasa is a warship built in the 17th century which sank on its maiden voyage not far from Stockholm. It was recovered in the 20th century and now stands proudly in the main hall of the museum.

One of the challenges was definitely to find a way to fit this beautiful vessel in my Moleskine sketchbook. This format is not really my favourite, to be honest.

Vasa

It took me 2 tries to get a satisfactory result, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with this second sketch.

Vasa

If there is one thing I will definitely take back with me from Sweden, it's the delicious kannelbulle. I loved them so much that I even bought a book with Swedish recipes just so I could have the recipe for these delicious little cakes.

Ah, kanelbulle! I miss you dearly! But I will get to the bottom of your secrets soon. Hahaha

Kanelbulle

It's true that time flies when you are having fun, but this time I was really surprised when Friday arrived and I had to go home already.

I was very early at the airport, so I still squeezed in an airport sketch, a view of Arland airport.

Arlanda airport


Tuesday 3 March 2015

Stockholm - part 1

I have been in a bit of a slump lately. Which explains why I haven't posted much lately.

Winter is not the best time to go out sketching and my mind seems to be in hibernating mode.

Luckily I had a short trip to Stockholm planned for the end of last month ; just the thing to get back on track.

Untitled
It was a very fidgety girl
Stockholm is a beautiful city and I was itching to sketch it. I tried, I really did, to sit down and draw. Unfortunately, the temperature was quite offputting and I only managed to produce this sorry attempt at a scenery...

Stockholm
If I go back I will do better.
...and this sketch of a statue of the Swedish singer Evert Taube.

Evert Taubes
Yellow makes things brighter :D
Stockholm is full of museums, so it was no problem at all to find  both shelter and interesting sketching material.

I started off at the Nobel Museum. As its name indicates, it is dedicated to the Nobel prize and its winners. You can fin information on all the people who were awarded the prize with a description of their achievements, as well as a collection of items they donated to the museum.

Nobel Museet
These were all donated by prize winners
Next on my list was the Moderna Museet. There was an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois and an interesting collection of modern art. I particularly enjoyed this piece by the surrealist artist Meret Oppenheim...

La gouvernante
The artist seemed to have interesting phantasies about his gouvernante
... and loved the samples of George Grosz's work, his drawings are so expressive.

Grosz
So much to learn from these!
How best to end the day than at the museum's café having what the Swedish call a fika?

Cafe Blom

More to follow :)