Still Life

This got my attention this morning. Robert C Jackson´s still lifes are, well, just wonderful to explore. They make me think that there must be a hidden beauty in all the seemingly mundane stuff that surrounds me that I am oblivious to. What does one need to see that? Rose-tinted glasses? In that case I must get me some.

Snap Drawings

We spent the weekend in Luxemburg, of all places. The tickets were cheap, to tell the truth, and we had never been - didn´t know much about it, actually - so we decided to go. Well, what a place! I am just beginning now to sort the photos, I will post more of them (and England, time just seems to fly!) eventually.

This time I handed the camera over to the husband. I am on a drawing course, after all, and I take every opportunity to exercise. Also, I was tired. We both were, but I didn´t realize just how tired untilI saw these photos of me, totally obliviously walking right past some very nice knitting graffiti. I love this stuff, and the husband noticed. I must be tired, indeed.

I did quite a bit of drawing, but the idea of sitting down in one spot for a couple of hours, like some of the sketchers I admire do, does not work well in my reality. I like to walk around, I like to see as much as possible. However, I can practice working fast, that´s what sketching is for, isn´t it? It doesn´t have to be perfect. I used my cheap A6 notebook and a pencil and just worked page after page, no more than five minutes on each, sometimes just a few seconds. Some of the sketches I worked into my journal in the evening; that turned out very well, I thought.

Not sure what I´m doing here, but probably trying to figure out some angle or proportion. I keep forgetting to hold my arm straight when I do that, and end up with all kinds of wonkiness on the page. I´ll be posting more sketches on the drawing blog over the next few weeks, if you´re curious.

The banking museum, as seen from Constitution square.

One of the railway bridges.

Inside the Bock Casemates.

The red bridge.

A snap drawing of a snap shooter, the husband on the train.
Very few lines, didn´t think anything of it at the time, but now I´m quite pleased about it.

Along the Alzette river.

From the river looking up on the city.

A House Full of Mulders

This is silly, but it made me laugh. The combination of "Pride and prejudice" and "The X-files" is just so unexpected and, well, I don´t know really, just that I found it very funny.

Creepy Photos

This artwork by Francesco Romoli really attracts me - perhaps because Halloween is coming up. It looks like a dollhouse where the play has turned sour, or become far too real. More here, with titles like "Christmas Day" and "Twilight Zone". Sets me on edge, a bit.

Miniature paintings

Can you believe the detail on these? Apparently, she doesn´t even use a magnifying glass.

First Snow

Outing with Mulle

I took a flight across Sweden this past weekend, to visit my sister and her family. It was a quick visit, but it´s so hard to organize longer visits, for all kinds of reasons, that I decided that quick and often must be better than long and seldom. Also, being childless and well into middle age, I do find the energy of my two nephews (they are five and eight) a bit overwhelming. As it was, I left on Sunday feeling more sad than relieved to part and quite eager to come again. Which is as it should be.

It is a whole different climate down there; Sweden is a long country, or, if you think of north as up, tall. I came from freezing temperatures, near snowing, to a comfortable 15 something degrees (I have known summers that never were any warmer). When I tell people I am going to Gothenburg, they think I am going to the city, but my sister lives in a small village and it´s more like going out into the country, with farms and woods. You meet horses on every path, and on a walk we met a beekeeper giving his bees medicine, some kind of acidious mixture. The children have no fear at all - unlike their parents and their aunt, who stayed well clear of any irritated bees. (The beekeeper had pacified them with smoke before he let the boys come closer.)

The whole family is active in the Swedish Outdoors Association (Friluftsfrämjandet), and I got to come along to Mulle-school (= Mulle is a kind of troll that teaches children between five and seven about the forest, with the help of mums and dads, of course). I never went to Mulle-school myself, but it´s existed since the late fifties.

It was great fun, although I did feel a bit misplaced. The children got to collect leaves, talk about trees, fika (this seems to be the best part!) and then followed a small brook from a waterfall to see where it went (into a lake). One of the teachers gave them all buckets and asked "what can you do with a bucket?"; one girl said "build your own brook!" and all the children immediately started filling their buckets and empty them a few meters up on dry land. Then someone found a pair of man´s underpants left behind and hanging in a bush, and decided they needed to be watered as well. It was highly entertaining, not just to participate, but to watch.

The Mulle-school has its own blogg, and even auntie Viktoria is caught on one or two snaps, looking a bit off (I blame it on lack of sleep, from which I suffer most weekends). I didn´t bring my drawing things, but made a kind of sketch/map of the day on the flight back.