A few days in Vienna - day 1

Last week I spent a few days in Vienna on a much needed short vacation.

Discovering a new city and sketching to my heart's content are two ways that really help me blow off some steam.

I had my breakfast at the airport, so of course I had to do my warm-up sketches then and there.

The airport's bakery

As I finished my first sketch, a group of Portuguese taxi drivers sat at the table in front of me and started playing cards. Yay!

I wonder what game they were playing.

Then I had to draw the classic air plane view. I'll have to start being more creative with these. They usually look pretty much the same.

Is that food and beverages I spot in the distance ? :D

I arrived around noon, so after leaving my luggage at the pension, I immediately went to the pub nearby to have lunch.

Cafe Ministerium has this nice old charm that I was looking forward to see in Vienna, so I was not disappointed.

However, I did find the waiters were a bit snooty, which surprised me.

The huge Wiener Schitzel I ordered was quite delicious, though.

To colour or not to colour - that is the question.

The first item on my list was everything Hundertwasser-related. I was very curious to see the Hundertwasserhaus for real and then to go to Kunsthaus Wien, where many of his works are exhibited.

I loved everything I saw and learned about this artist. He was such a visionary, in my opinion.

I specially like his concept of seeing a person's house as their third skin, and love the fact that the lucky inhabitants of the Hundertwasserhaus have the prerogative to customise their windows as far as their arms can reach. Plus the concept of tree tenants is just genius!

I made a compilation of various motives I liked from his paintings and added all the quotes that were written throughout the exhibition as well.

"The straight line is godless!"

In the evening I still managed to go to MAK, the Museum of Applied Arts. It was open until late and, as an added bonus, the entrance was free!

There were quite a few interesting items to see, but I was too tired to sketch any of them.

Before going back to the pension, I stopped at MAK's bar to have a quick bite and a couple of beers.

The waiters here were very friendly and the bottle lamp was so appealing that I made one last quick sketch for the day.

Seriously cool lamp!

All in all it was a successful first half day in Vienna. I was surprised at how much some residential parts reminded me of Prague. But then again, I guess it makes sense.

42nd international Sketchcrawl

On Saturday I went to Mudam for the 42nd international Sketchcrawl.

Leen Van Bogaert, a fellow Urban sketcher I hadn't met yet, organised the meeting place and contacted several people.

I on my side contacted some friends. I was happily surprised when two of them showed up.

All in all we were 8 people, which I think is a very good number for a first meeting.

We all met at the entrance of Mudam and, after a few introductions, split up to do some sketching.

I only made two sketches at that point. Here is one of them.

People were coming and going, checking out an art installation.

After about one hour, we all gathered at the cafe area, where we had a nice chat and got to know each other.

I learned to my astonishment that there is a Luxembourg Sketchcrawl group and blog. Another welcome surprise!

Looking forward to more sketchcrawls with these lovely people

We were quite the international bunch: Beata, Kuba and Izabella are from Poland, Leen is from Belgium, Ana is Portuguese, Didier is French, Tessy and I are from Luxembourg.

Izabella and Kuba didn't actually sketch anything, but it was very nice meeting them

We exchanged email addresses before parting. Hopefully we'll stay in touch.

In the evening I went to see West Side Story at the Théâtre Municipal de Luxembourg. It was the perfect way to end a beautiful day.

I even got to do one last sketch.

As with all other sketches, colour was added later

January mail art

The topic of this month's mail art exchange organised by Atelier "Carnet à Spirale" is the colour green.

I have to say I wasn't very inspired for a while.

Or rather I had too many ideas to choose one.

Until this little frog jumped into my mind.

It's waiting for a princess to drop her gold ball in the water

Now it will be hopping its way to Belgium.

UPDATE: Check out the compilation of all the mail arts sent during this exchange. They all look great!

UPDATE 2: Here's the lovely envelope I received from Claire from France

I've always wanted to see a jungle :D

I just discovered washi tape

"What is this washi tape?", you might ask.

It's a kind of masking tape, only with very cute patterns, made of paper. Not surprisingly, it comes from Japan (like almost eveything cute!).

I saw a picture of a drawing including a strip of washi tape and thought I'd give it a try.

I was lucky to find some. It's not that easy to find interesting craft and drawing materials here.

I have a Lamali sketchbook with very different types of paper in it: recycled, white, orange, black, some kind of fibre, etc. I'm using it exclusively for portraits.

I chose to use the kind of orange-coloured paper instead of the white one. I think it makes it more interesting.

Here are some portraits I did for JKPP, in which I used it.

Anne

Adrienne

Danielle

Virtual Paintout January 2014: Cape Cod

This month's Virtual Paintout location is Cape Cod.

I knew of it, or rather I had heard the name before, but I didn't actually know where it was until now.

Nor how pretty it is.

It looks like the perfect place to spend a summer near the beach.

Here is my submission.

You can check out the reference image on Google Streetview.

I joined JKPP

What is that, you might ask?

Well, it's very simple: JKPP stands for Julia Kay's Portrait Party and it's the virtual equivalent of a sketching meetup where people draw each other.

So how does it work?

Basically, participants post pictures of themselves to the JKPP Flickr group so other participants can use them as inspiration to make portraits.

One aim of the group is to give artists a safe place to try out different things, get creative and receive feedback from others.

The great thing about it is that you get to see many interpretations of the same subject, which is very inspiring.

The added bonus is that you get a lot of interesting portraits of yourself out of it.

 Here are my first contributions.

My first "commission"

A couple of weeks ago I was given my first sort of commission.

I say "sort of" because I didn't actually get paid for it.

I did it as a favour for a friend who is preparing a surprise for her boyfriend.

She is compiling a book with poems he has written and wanted to include a portrait of him.

Apparently she had seen and liked my latest drawings on FB, so she asked me.

I haven't met him yet, but he looks like a very kind person.