Corners

Not much going on for the past couple of days





ink pens in pocket sketchbook

At home or out and about

I haven't been drawing much lately, just relaxing at home with the family and enjoying the fantastic summer weather.



R came home from Malaysia, and we've been experimenting with the various green and white teas he brought back with him.



The coming weekend might yield a bit more sketching - I just heard today that R and I will be off on an extended weekend to Rome, yay! No doubt it will be extremely hot, but I'm sure we'll manage to enjoy ourselves anyway. I've been feeling a bit left out with all the posting on the up coming Portland Symposium, and this little trip will be a nice treat now that I can't take part in our first Urban Sketchers symposium. Art will be scanned and uploaded once I'm back, as I don't plan on taking a laptop along.

Here's a quick sketch from the centre of town from this afternoon:



 

My little pocket sketchbook is slowly filling up with these simple one or two tone sketches.

Café Smagløs

Sketching today at Café Smagløs on Klostertorvet square while waiting for our lunch to arrive. The annual Århus Jazz Festival is in progress, and we listened to a trio playing live on the open scene of the square.



Lots of people were out enjoying the sunny weather and listening to the music.





Ink pens in pocket sketchbook.

Town Hall

Some photos and a watercolour from Wednesday's sketch-date with Anette. We sat in the park outside Musikhuset (the Concert Hall), and I sketched the view of Århus' Rådhustårn - the Town Hall clock tower - behind some large trees.



It was almost too hot for watercolours - they kept drying out before I had a chance to paint!



Considering the conditions I'm pleased enough with the result.



The Town Hall was designed by the architects Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller in 1937. The original design was without clock tower and marble facing, but popular demand led to the tower being added and the poured concrete construction being faced in a beautiful grey-green Norwegian marble instead of plaster. The tower is open to the public on workdays between 09:30 and 15:00, and affords a wonderful view of the town, the Bay of Århus and the surrounding hills.

Anette sketched a view of Ridehuset, the old building where the cavalry used to exercise their horses in the winter. Now the building is used for various cultural events, and there was a free jazz concert in progress while we sketched away out in the sun.



Here is Anette's drawing, in ink pen and markers:

Garden

I spent a few hours cleaning up my main flower bed today.



The Granny's Bonnets (Aquilegia) were all gone to seed, and the Icelandic Poppies (Papaver nudicaule) are well on their way to doing likewise - I still need to remover the leaves of the first, and all parts of the latter, but now you can at least see the roses and lavender that dominate the bed for the rest of the season.



Inspired by all the intricate botanical details of the day, my daily sketch was of a bushy rose that climbs (or rather leans against) the side of our summer room.



Ink pens in pocket sketchbook.

Watercolour

I had another go at using watercolour in the Moleskine sketchbook. This time I made sure I had a scene I wanted to draw, and paid attention to how and where I used the paint.

The guy sitting in front of me eventually realised I was sketching the scene - it's difficult to be discreet when battling a playful breeze and displaying the full watercolour kit:




I am quite pleased with this - the composition worked out really well with the layered poles/trunks and the groups of people, and I succeeded in controlling the use of colour.


This was done outside the café suppestegogis ("soup, roast and icecream", or souproastandicecream - the bare bones Danish dinnerparty menu out in the country for the past three generations or so). The café is on Åboulevarden, beside the canal, and has a good selection of sorbets and icecream. I spent a nice half hour under the parasol outside, having a peach-mango sorbet and a watercolour and cooling down in the breeze. Århus is hot and humid at the moment, and I'm enjoying the Mediterranean heat we're having for once.

Inside and out

More pencil sketching again. One week until my summer holiday starts, and I hope to have room for a little more creativity for a while.