Our FPP has come to an end and almost all the sketchbook are home. Lindsay will soon end off our FPP.
See a slide show of Rainbow moments.
For info on how (and why!) to do a sketchbook exchange you can read Vivien’s great post!
Until next year!!
…take a moment…
We’re back from Helsinki and what a wonderful city, beautiful people, delicious food. I loved every minute I was there. We landed in the snow and it was a fairytale wonderland. I walked all over, or rather ice skated all over – I can now understand why they are such great skaters…they learn it in winter on the sidewalks! At first, your steps are very careful and hesitant, arms balancing sideways like a tight rope walker, until you get the rhythm and allow your feet to slide forward…and you walk.
I visited the Atheneum museum with Finnish artists and of course loved/love the work of Albert Edelfelt, especially this Children playing on the shore. And apart from walking and taking in the beauty around me and enjoying art, getting completely lost in the dark and the snow, I ate herring and cod and salmon, warmed myself with glögi, giggled and skated even better on the sidewalks thereafter, probed recipe books, waved to Nina in Stockholm, Sweden on the shore, and made only one sketch from the safety and warmth of the Café Engel on Senate square. Done in sketchbook with water soluble pilot pen and wash.
To see some photos, you can go here.
…helsinki cathedral on senate square…
…strangers…
I was in Amsterdam last week, criss-crossed the whole city and tried to do some sketching. I found it extremely difficult to sketch in Amsterdam. I struggled to zoom out the busyness of the city and capture only the essential in a scene. The canals are filled with boathouses and with sightseeing boats, the streets with bicycles and people and cars and trees obscuring the narrow houses. And I sometimes feared for my life as, standing on a spot with a sketchbook in hand, doesn’t mean you’re in a safe spot. I had to jump aside many a time, from the urgent ringing of a bicycle bell, just to hear the clang of the tram behind me, which had me scuffling quickly left, directly in front of some service truck, fleeing to the right, of course on the toes of some nose-ringed stranger and apologizing back onto one of the many black garbage bags on the sidewalk. That would have me slog shakily into the nearest coffee shop or bookstore.
An interesting city, with a heartbeat of its own. I’ve come to recognize many of the gables of the buildings, as we have them in SA as well. We ate kroket and patatje and drank our blond beers with a lemon slice. I enjoyed koffie verkeerd in the company of Rembrandt and Van Gogh and had my dry cleaning delivered to one of the other many Van Wijks there in Amsterdam. I saw the seductive silhouet of Madame in the window of her “Walletjies” apartment and quickly put my hand over Hartman’s eyes. A busy time. A busy city. I now revel once again in the quiet of my home back here on the banks of the Loire.
So here are some efforts, drawn on site in pen or pencil in my handmade sketchbook and moleskine and finished at the hotel with a wash of watercolour. For some pictures(more interesting and much nicer than the sketches!) you can go to Myfrenchkitchen.
…many bridges, many canals, many boats, many trees, many…
…and more…
…giant amaryllus…
…bulbs, bulbs and bulbs…
…in the way of the tram…
In my previous post, José made the suggestion that I post the full page and not only detail. So I took him up on his suggestion to show my pages, because there may be others thinking that I post the detail and not the whole sketch. I took the last couple of sketches in my sketchbook. Unfortunately it doesn’t look more interesting and there isn’t actually a bigger picture! I think you could say I “zoom in and choose to sketch detail”. What fascinates me is a broken window shutter, the the moss on a fountain, the intricate woodwork on a wall, a dilapidated door, a doorknob, the corner of a cornice, a shadow on a table, one flower in a bouquet…. so that is what I zoom in to. My sketchbooks are 19×24 cm and I use up all the space when I sketch. I struggle to paint on small format.
When I post, I don’t use any enhancement in terms of contrast or colour correction or whatever, except for the crop tool and then only to “neaten up” the page. It can be seen in image 1 and 2, where in image 2, I only took out the background and excessive white paper. And then of course I only post one page, because I scan most of the time and the whole sketchbook is too big for my scanner. And I also get nice white paper with the scanner.
Maybe it is time I zoom out and see the big picture….perhaps life could be less stressful…philosophically speaking?
…image 1…
…image 2…
…moleskine people sketches…
I went into Tours today with a very low level of energy, trying to snap out of it. I succeeded in getting four sketches done, albeit a bit crooked. Even made a mistake in the spelling of “boutique”, didn’t really finish sketching rue avisseau and abandonned the lovely old church halfway…next time.
Blanqui is a tiny quartier, very quant, with only a boulangerie and poissonerie, a small family restaurant, a bar for café et journal, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a market and old houses, which are mostly now appartements.
…la boutique de mon pére..
…rue blanqui, 34 et 32…
…rue avisseau…
…la mére et l’enfant…
All sketches done in sketchbook with pencil, pen and watercolour.
Now that our Flying Pictures Project is a little further down the road and everybody involved had already seen my first sketches posted on our blog FPP, AND since I don’t have much in the form of sketches to post here, AND I haven’t been around much, I thought it good to post my first sketches that were sent off in May. With my theme being “rainbow moments”, I took the first subjects that came into my view that gave me joy and this is what shaped the first two and half pages in my book that went off to Lindsay, and has just landed at Robyn. So, four more stops, before it arrives back home.
Edited: To see Lindsay’s beautiful addition in oil pastel, see our Flying Pictures Project .
All sketches done in our handmade concertina sketchbooks with rotring pen, pencil and watercolour.
Africantapestry 
