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!

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.

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.

Cranes everywhere

 

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.

Playing with contrasts

This was a great opportunity to meet new sketching enthusiasts, increase our small group of usual sketchers.

Zeta and another sketcher

We finished the afternoon with a nice drink & draw, one of my favourite parts of any sketchcrawl.

@ Weschtesgaart

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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...

If I go back I will do better.

...and this sketch of a statue of the Swedish singer Evert Taube.

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.

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...

The artist seemed to have interesting phantasies about his gouvernante

... and loved the samples of George Grosz's work, his drawings are so expressive.

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?

More to follow :)

Around the World Blog Hop

I was nominated by Miriam Benmoussa to participate in the Around the World Blog Hop.

I met Miriam at the USK Symposiums I attended and we have been in contact online fairly regularly lately. Thank you for choosing me to participate, Miriam! It is a great opportunity to take time to reflect on this creative habit that we share.

So how does this Around the World Blog Hop work?

Every week someone is nominated to answer a few questions about their creative process, post those answers on the following Monday and nominate someone else to do the same.

This is my Monday and here comes the challenging part with the questions I'm not sure to have a good answer to.

What am I working on?

Nothing in particular. I don't really have any plan about what to draw and why. I just mainly go with what I feel like sketching and also take on challenges or make drawings for friends.

I try to experiment as much as I can. I guess so far it's more visible in my JKPP portraits.

I consider myself to be continually in a learning process and so I "drift" a little.That is why I try to participate in a lot of activities like JKPP, Sketchbook Skool, Sketching Workshop, InkTober, etc.

It's probably something I should work on, actually. I would like to set myself some specific goals from now on.

I'm also trying to get more people together for regular sketchcrawls here in Luxembourg. At the moment our group is quite small, but so far we have managed to be at least 3 people every time.


How does my work differ from others of its genre?

This question implies that I do have a genre and I'm not sure I do. I do urban sketching and a lot of portraits, so can these be considered genres?

If yes, then I think that my work, in particular my urban sketches, is a lot based on line and less on colour. Which I would like to change, for I absolutely want to use more colour in a creative way. I just don't seem to get the hang of it somehow. Or at least I'm not completely satisfied with what I do. Then again, this insatisfaction must be normal, right?


My favourite subject, though, is people. I feel less daunted by people than by buildings. Which is strange because buildings are much more forgiving subjects if only because they don't tend to move so much.

Is it because they are so big and the sketchbook so small? Is it because of all the details or the perspective? I'm not sure. It just seems to be impossible for me to be spontaneous with immovable subjects. I have the occasional fluke, but I definitely need to work on that.

So I would say that my work differs from some people's work in that I love to draw people and love to use simple lines.

Why do I create what I do?

As I stated before, I'm in a constant process of learning. I only started drawing regularly again a bit over 2 years ago, so I know and feel that I have A LOT to learn in order to improve my skills and one day have my own clear voice.

At the moment, drawing is a process of meditation and self-exploration for me. A way to get to know myself better. For example, I discovered that I am a much more impatient person than I thought I was.

Maybe one day this habit will evolve into something else. I would love to be able to live from it, but it is not a priority for now.

How does my creative process work?

It's actually mostly very spontaneous. I just draw what catches my eye or inspires me. I carry a small sketchbook with me most of the time, so I can seize the opportunity to draw when I see a subject that interests me.

I'm my most creative when I'm travelling, though, or with other people. Travelling awakens my curiosity and everything I see seems interesting.

I try to push myself to draw at home as well, specially if I haven't worked in a while. In those times I feel slightly constricted in the beginning, but I love to see how my work slowly develops. It's less spontaneous but it gives me more time to see the different stages of evolution and learn from them for future projects.


And now the nominee for next week (drumrolls):

For next Monday I nominate my fellow Urban Sketcher friend Sue Pownall. Sue is an artist and illustrator from the UK whom I met at the USK Symposium in Barcelona and again in Brazil. She has a lovely blog in which she shows her art projects which are quite varied. I'm looking forward to reading her thoughts on her creative process.

Thank you again, Miriam, for nominating me. It has been interesting to reflect on these questions.

I went to Brussels...

... and didn't see anything of it.

I was there to attend a day of conferences at the European Commission, followed by a testing day of various European Points of Single Contact (PSC) websites.

Although this is not the most thrilling thing I have done so far, I did enjoy the opportunity to meet people from other European countries and exchange points of view and ideas on our work.

The sad thing is that I didn't get to sketch much. I was way too tired in the evening to go out and see the city.

But I did get plenty of time to sketch people on the way there and back in the train. A three hour ride each way does get a bit long when you have nothing to do.

There were the usual suspects:

... the person busy with their phone...

Looked like a busy businessman

... the person reading a newspaper...

There was a reference to Charlie Hebdo

... someone playing sudoku, in this case my colleague...

Completely engrossed in his puzzle

... the novel reader (I always wonder what they're reading and whether I would like it)...

I know: the levels... Couldn't figure out how to improve them here without making the colours look weird

... and the sleeper.

Sweet dreams!

I do love to sketch in the train. It's far easier than in the bus and less conspicuous too.