Overlooking the city

Last Sunday, we met with Urban Sketchers Luxembourg at the Observatoire, the bar of hotel Sofitel.

I had heard that it offered an amazing view of the city, but I had never been there before. I was not disappointed.

Everyone was drawn to the windows and tried their best to sketch the cityscape.

Personally, I am not used to that exercise at all and I found it very difficult, getting lost in too many details at some point.

There was a moment when I realized that I would never get to the kind of result I was expecting, so I just started to try out different things, playing with colour, ink and pencil. It was much more fun this way.

We do live in a beautiful city!

After the difficult landscape, I took a "break" and sketched the beautiful tea set in front of me. It really felt like I was breathing easily again. I'm definitely not at ease with big city scapes yet.

Green tea to get in a more zen mood

It's interesting how a change of subject can help me get much more playful with my sketches. I felt much looser to do a quick detail of one of the main bridges, the Pont Viaduc.

I love bridges

As I mentioned, this was a very unusual exercise for me, but one I think I will repeat in the future. Specially at this location.

Ping...

... and pong!

I should probably say table tennis, but ping pong sounds so much more fun!

Last week, we met with the Urban Sketchers Luxembourg for our monthly sketchcrawl, this time at the National Sports Centre, d'Coque, in Kirchberg.

It is the perfect place to take shelter from the cold, the wind and the rain, and it offers the possibility to sketch a more sportive environment.

That day, a table tennis competition was taking place, a great opportunity to try our hands at sketching a sports event.

At first I tried to sketch one or the other player in particular, but it quickly became apparent that it would be more frustrating than fun, so I focused purely on very fast action drawings.

I have to admit I'm not a particular fan of table tennis, but watching the games was pretty interesting.

After a while, I noticed that most players, even some of the younger ones, have their own styles, some more theatrical than others, specially when serving.

One of our regulars, Denis, invited us all for a drink at the refreshment stalls to celebrate his birthday. Perfect moment to share our impressions and watch some of the games.

In the end, I was so engrossed in trying to capture the action that I didn't even find out who won the competition. 

I did, however, learn that ping pong can be a pretty impressive sport.

More liaison officers

A few more of my liaison officer friends.

We had stressful but fun times and other downright hilarious moments together.

Christiane

Francis

Han

Irina

Isabelle

Luc

Yolanda

Carlo

Liaison officers

In 2015, Luxembourg held the Presidency of the European Council during the second half of the year.

In that context, I had the pleasure to act as a liaison officer for several European delegations during the informal meetings. 

I met many different people from all over Europe ; the Czech Republic, the former Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Poland, among others.

However, the best part was working with my fellow liaison officers during those 6 months. People from different professions and parts of Luxembourg, all motivated to make "our" Presidency as successful and pleasant as possible.

All good things come to an end, sadly, but to end this wonderful experience and show my appreciation to my colleagues, I made a series of portraits for as many of them as I could.

Here are a some of my favourites. I will post more in a separate post.

Mariette

Michel

Monique

René

Theresa

Laurent

Alain

Bruno

And yet it moves

Eppur si muove is the title of the exhibition held at the Mudam when we went there for our monthly sketchcrawl with Urban Sketchers Luxembourg.

The exhibition focuses on the links between the fields of the visual arts and technology, as well as the influence that the history of the sciences and technology has exercised on contemporary arts.

It was the ideal place to take refuge on a chilly Sunday afternoon.

I was immediately attracted to an installation with a vespa, showing its different parts and how they fit together. Like an autopsy of sorts. There was something kind of poetic in the way all the parts were hanging from the ceiling.

Unfortunately I forgot to check what the name of this piece was, but here is my attempt at capturing it.

Imagine all the pieces floating in the room

 Most of my fellow sketchers were more interested in a colourful installation by Jean Tinguely called Fatamorgana Méta-Harmonie IV. A button on the floor activated the machine, which then started making various noises.

Each part had a different colour, though

It was a very popular attraction, with many people waiting to see what the machine would do next.

I was surprised at the number of visitors in the museum, to be honest. Excellent occasion to quickly capture people on paper.

A guided tour was taking place. Unfortunately I was too far to hear what was being said

People gazing at the Christmas market

For the last sketchcrawl of the year, the Urban Sketchers Luxembourg decided to aim for the Christmas market in the capital.

This time around we were quite the crowd, with 10 people spreading around the place to sketch the little houses, the people, the surrounding buildings.

I started with the best intentions of capturing a scene of the whole market or at least a portion of it, but somehow only managed to focus on a funny little statue on top of one of the stalls.

The drunk Santa was just irresistible.

Luckily, the weather was quite mild for the season and there was a big crowd, which allowed me to sketch my favourite subject: people.

People being people, though, I did not have many cooperative models and had to be as fast as possible, so I ended up mainly with a collection of hastily jotted squiggles.

 

It's ok, though, for a collection of squiggles always looks better than one squiggle alone :D

After a while it started feeling cold, so we headed to one of our favourite cafés, the Kaale Kaffi.

Everyone was pretty much at the Christmas market, so we were able to sit the whole group at the big table.

Nothing like sipping on a ginger lemon tea while drawing with sketching buddies to finish a lovely afternoon.

Les Rotondes et La Buvette

Last Saturday I met with other sketchers for a sketchcrawl organised by LUCA at La Buvette, the pub at Rotondes in Bonnevoie.

The Rotondes used to be buildings where trains were repaired and stored. They were repurposed a few years ago and have now become this trendy place where various cultural events take place, such as exhibitions, concerts, plays, etc.

Unlike so many places in Luxembourg it is not overly clean and organised. I love the occasional messiness of the place.

Undeterred by the cold, we started out on the outside, where the food truck is. I couldn't resist sketching the trailer and the many seemingly randomly placed cables with their colourful lightbulbs. I'll have to add some colour to this sketch sometime.

Spot the sketcher

I have to say we were quite the troopers out there. The day was pleasant but pretty cold. At some point my hands turned a shade of purple. It got so bad that I didn't even feel the heat emanating from the glass of mulled wine I was holding.

Luckily, the inside of the Rotondes is just as interesting as the outside, and we warmed ourselves up at La Buvette. The servers are very friendly and we enjoyed the cosy afternoon atmosphere.

Isabelle is one of the latest sketchers joining our group

I'll have to go back when the weather is nicer. These round shaped buildings are so interesting, they deserve more attention.