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.

USk Germany Moot 2017: Eutin

In early September, I travelled north to meet up with about 120 other artists to participate in the annual Urban Sketcher Germany Moot in the lovely town of Eutin (where the fxxx is that? ... well close to the baltic sea, north of marzipan-capitol Lübeck). Comes with chalets and all. Lovely people put toghether a great weekend  or all of us. Check Urban Sketcher blogs or their facebook for more impressions.
Started out by digging out my old boyscout tent and risk camping out by a lake. Morning fog! How I´ve missed you!

Kellersee impression

Panorama of the market square of Eutin. Whole lot of us was so eager to get started  that most had arived long before the official start of the event. Detlev Surrey from Berlin kept sketching long enough for me to include him. Finished just before the only drops of rain started, by which time the lecturers of the weekend were welcomed to the town hall by the mayor so we could sign the "golden book"

Marktplatz Eutin

On Saturday there actually was a market on the market square, had to gulp down 7 herrings all toghether. Been deprived of fresh ones for far too long as I have acquired quite a taste for them back in Holland. Still joined the exercise of the wonderful Tine Klein.

Petertraße

Busy with pointing out mirror effects in water surfaces in my own demo, the first drawing atually finished was during the sketch crawl on sunday.

Schloss Eutin

Weekend was far too short to enjoy that picturesque little town and the company of al those peers. Looking forward to Hamburg next year!

Sketching on Crete

Comfortably residing in Malia on Crete for 9 days the local Excavations were the first to lure out my pens. 3rd largest minoan palace on the Island, many of the artifacts been shipped off to Heraklion Museum of Archaeology, but some huge storage-vases remained there. Needless to say I got very thirsty from sketching.

And then there was the palace of Knossos:

But not only ancient ruins drew my attention. There were some lovely sights in the old town of Mália worth darwing. Myth goes, the church below, built under turkish occupation has built without water to mix the mortar. One way of blocking building materials to prevent an unappreciated religion to create a place of worship. What did the clever Cretians do? Used milk instead!!!

At the best of times good motifs go hand in hand with creature comforts: As in this case the little chaple had a tavern attached to it. Amazing food and good service. Chapel on one night at wich the waiters of Odas Taverna jokingly suggested I´d do the whole tavern next. Well ... just my thing, isn´t it? So two more delicious meals, some sketching between the courses. Needless to say I did go there for a meal on my last night, as well.