When in Ireland ...

 Who would think of travelling to Ireland in mid-october? Well - I am glad a dear friend of mine did. Being a musician he actually packed a huge bus full of his band, friends and hangers-on (about70) and organised a lovely tour, kindly and generously inviting me along (Thank you so much again, Paul! It was unforgettable!) . The weather was perfectly indian summer and not a drop of rain in 10 days. Getting far more into music AND being guided from pub to brewery to distillery and so on - half of the time serving to simultaneously translate Hiberno-English into German for the Bavarian Group - I only found a bit of time to get my pens out when we hit Kilkenny. In a way I regret having drawn so little, yet it leaves me with an excuse to literally revisit all those lovely towns that are still stuck in my memory. So, Kilkenny Caste twice and Town Hall.

Urban Sketching Hamburg

 T'was early September that the Urban Sketchers gathered in Hamburg to sketch their way through this huge port-city metropole. Was lucky in lodgings as my sister lives not too far from the central station at present and had plans elsewhere. So she generously let me use her cute studio. 

Did the Town Hall on the day of arrival

and off to the nearest pub right after. Famished. Kitchen closed, not even music on. Lovely brick vault for drawing, though!

As a lover of curvilinear perspective my workshop was pretty technical, so took quite some attention and repeating Explanations and steps individually, so I was wise enough to start my own take on the picked location in the morning the same day. Magdellanterrassen. This isn´t the full 360° but a section. Far in the distance - pretty central - is the bent roof of the "Elbphilharmonie". 

Took hours to draw an iconic building on the docks, Sandtorkai.

random sketches

Busy times, leaving very little for leisure sketching. One of the last trips with the students before they focused on their game projects to a cemetary near University.

Südfriedhof, München

One of the highlights in between the full schedule was a weekend camping out on Greenfarm at Hauslerhof in Hallbergmoos, trying to capture the colours around one of the little lakes near the farm before the bands started playing again. Quite impressive what size the jumping fishes appeared to be.

See am Hauslerhof, Hallbergmoos

Urban Sketchers Munich were invited by BISS magazine (homeless monthly street-news project, silver aniversary) to draw their installation wrapping up the royal statue on Wittelsbacher Platz.

BISS Pavillion, Wittelsbacher Platz

Sketch anywhere - anytime! Was sure I would get bored in the lunchbreak of my first-aid course some weeks ago, so did a little sketch of some funky building near Leuchtenbergring.

Leuchtenbergring 

Discoveries

Only just recovered from a cool stag party of my dearest colleague, drifting down the river Isar on a log-float with three wooden kegs - an entirely awesome experience! - last Sunday was another grand moot of the local Urban Sketchers chapter. Early May and we have already had over a month worth of sunny summer days with hardly a drop of rain. First sight I aimed for on the old cemetary (alter Südfriedhof) was the arched passage to the south-western section close to the lapidarium. Determined I wanted to get some sort of colour impression I ignored all the warning signs: Too hot, too dry: watercolours drying on the brush and hardly a chance of an appropriate wash + colours meant NO SUNGLASSES!!! Neigh snowblind after 15 minutes I turned to pen for a proper drawing.

It was just there that the crew of the local broadcast BR snuck up on me. I knew they had come to report on our little sketching flashmob and was happy to answer their question ... quite a number of questions actually. Couldn´t be sure I hadn´t given too many moronic deliberations, so was delighted when the couple of sentences they picked sounded halfway intelligent/profound.

BR: Urban Sketching in Munich


To close the afternoon and before heading for a pint at Kennedy´s I had spotted some weird basin along the way I wanted to tackle. Amongst the ancient gravestones it looked quite interesting. And it was! Still pretty new to town I had never heard of the battle it was supposed to commemorate. What? 1705 on Christmas day? Peasants had died ... for what reason .. how many and does anyone remember? Sendlinger Mordweihnacht? Do they tell the story to the kids? It appeared to have been an uprising during some struggle for succession of the spanish throne. Too complicated to summarize, but when digging through Wikipedia it turned out the rebel base was in the former village I now live at. Slaughtered after surrendering I will soon head up to the old church and graveyard where I have seen a statue of one of the rebel´s great hero, the Blacksmith of Kochel. Really love how drawing leads to little discoveries!

Munich was blessed with an early summer this April, so while the rest of the country was suffering the usual conditions, weather for some sketching was nothing short of excellent.

Propylaeon, Gate at Koeningsplatz.

Neptunus fountain in the old botanical gardens. Short afternoon excursion with just two students as most were studying for exams.

Months indoors

There always is something to draw. Apart from the endless doodles and some time-consuming assignments a couple of exercises in observational drawing.

Rather happy about this little fellow: Convinced the University to buy one of the Asaro heads with flat surfaces for colour and light-studies. Low-poly, as we would call it nowadays.

Poor weather as well when all Munich artist groups were invited to a sketching meeting in a museum about geology, evolution and nature in the amazing palace of Nymphenburg. Was freezing cold outside and packed indoors. From small babies to toddlers. Their parents were far more obnoxious, though.

Imagine sketching that  dino skeletton and a mom comes around, baby in arm, looks around, settles down right in front of the exhibit on a bench to .... breastfeed and leers at then scolds me for a pervert for looking in her direction. Parents - aye, they were the worst. When we were banned from using any wet drawing materials, those were having cakes and mayonaise drooping sandwitches in the middle of the exhibition .... right next to the room available for meals and lunches ... :o

In January the Urban Sketchers made do with the urban museum of Munich, containing a section of historic puppets. Not too thrilling when one prefers buildings and spaces.

Was interesting to run into the fellow to the right, or raster his bust, one Franz Graf von Pocci. Coming past an underground station on the way home each day I never took the time to wonder what the street with the italian sounding name "Poccistraße" may be named after. Tours out your man had written numerous plays for puppeteers and is credited for making the german version of Punch and Judy popular. Getting to know this city ....

Digging through ...

As spring kicks  in it is about time to get the sketchbooks in order and posts up to date. Still a lot of observational sketching done before winter.

   

Sketching on campus to demonstrate observational drawing before taking the students into town and do the Siegestor in Munich.

About the same time Oktoberfest had finished and the Urban Sketchers met at the "Wiesn" to check out the deconstruction of that huge fairground. + Lady Bavaria next to the Theresienwiese.

Last USk Moot in December it was freezing cold, even indoors when sketching the interior of Theatinerkirche at Odeonsplatz, Munich.