Laurelines

Christmas sketches past and a wish for all of us

I am putting discussions of painting on hold until I return from Wales in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to make a December post to wish you happiness, a festive spirit against daunting odds, and to thank you for your support and interest, still. I feel and cherish the warmth you send in your messages to me and in our real world encounters. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Being the cold-seeking missile that I am, I travel in the winter a lot.  Here is my Christmas card to you, some sketches from such travel over the past years.

Here we are in Bruges, on one December a while back. I sat quietly in front of our hotel's lovely fireplace and Christmas tree, sipped a glass of sparkling something, and drew:

Next, a trip to Vancouver in early December one year found David and me running for cover from a rainy late afternoon walk on the harbor. The Fairmont Hotel bar had empty seats. I had great fun drawing their winter-themed lobby:

Oh, Copenhagen, how we love you! This was another time we headed for warmth on a cold winter night. It was Tivoli Gardens in December, where explosions of millions of lights and colors vanquish the dark.  My sketch was made in a bar in the gardens, where a stately tree dominated the impressive room.

For love, there is no equal to Norway in my heart! Here's a glimpse of a very cozy café, we repaired to when we were staying in a small village near Tromsø:

And how we love Munich, too! This was from the first of two trips we made in successive Decembers. We couldn't stay away!  Orlando Café is busy and touristy, but nevertheless beautiful and the pastries (and beer!) (and soups!) are superb.

Finally, here we are in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a village where I spent important time with my family in childhood.  Walking from the parking lot just outside the village toward the center, I suddenly felt the intense presence of my late father. The last time we were there together, I was 6 or 7. His very real presence, and the memories of all my life with him, overcame me and I sobbed and sobbed. 

Later, having collected myself, I drew this scene from the warm interior of Restaurant Alpenhof.

 

Love and joy come to you, no matter where, and no matter how or what, you celebrate. 

See you next year! Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

 

 

December trip sketches and thoughts

(Please click on images to see them in full.)

 

The days after our return from Bavaria and Austria raced by. I felt breathless trying to get everything ready for the holidays. But part of me is still there, in lively and friendly Munich, elegant Salzburg, and imposing, glittery Vienna. The sketches I made this time were idiosyncratic and totally self-directed. It was cold out and we were traveling with friends, so I didn't have, or didn't arrange for, many urban-type sketching opportunities.

I took a limited mix of art tools: big Pitt artist pens, a smattering of Inktense pencils, a couple of micro pens and a Pentel pocket brush pen. I wanted to add color on site, get it done! I  often take gray or brown toned paper sketchbooks when I travel to cold climates in the winter time and I did this again this time. The toned paper gives an atmospheric quality to what I draw that is just right for those cold places.

My first sketch of the trip was in Munich, at a little café in the Viktualienmarkt.  We were on a glühwein quest and we found a fun, spartan place to sit and celebrate the first night of our trip.

Another successful glühwein stop! This was the second night of our Munich adventure.

The wild boar mounted on the wall at Goerreshof restaurant in Munich took me back instantly to memories of our first trip to Sweden, to Gothenburg to see our daughter Cecelia, where I sketched another pig's head in the food market there:

Here's my Swedish pig from 2005:

And here's my Munich pig from 2016:

 

In tiny Frielassing, where we had to drop off our rental car, we had dinner at a family-run, cozy restaurant. I made this sketch in the darkish interior, using dry Inktense pencils. 

 

At the Naturhistoriches Museum in Vienna, I was compelled to sit and draw skeletons from the long- ago past. 

 

Leaving Vienna for Munich again and our flight home, I drew this lovely woman at the Hauptbahnhof very early in the morning.

 

 I admit that I have had mixed feelings about starting to write this post. My cheerful words and images seemed inappropriate at best. A few days after we returned home, 12 people were murdered in Berlin and 56 were injured at a Christmas market very like the ones we went to in Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna. I had, in fact, at first hesitated to return to Munich this year, after last year's terrorist events in Munich and other parts of Germany ...and elsewhere. In the end, I decided not to let fear guide our plans and so we went. We were lucky this time. Others, tragically, were not.

That we live in highly dangerous times is obvious to everyone. Hatred and violence manifest daily around the world. It is easy to feel hopeless and I often do. It is not a state of mind I can sustain and yet what is there to replace it with?

For my own comfort and with that stubborn human hope that, against all evidence and against all odds, there's a better world coming, I repeat to myself these words from the Buddhist Metta prayer, the prayer for lovingkindness:

May all beings everywhere be happy, be safe, and be free from suffering.

May all beings everywhere be at peace.

 

Love and peace to you.

 

December in Bavaria: my sketches and good wishes to you!

Happy end of 2015 and happy tomorrow and the new year! I am just getting this post in in the nick of time... before the clock delivers us to 2016 in this part of the world! The sketches from our trip to Bavaria earlier this month are a fitting way for me to end this year's blog posts. We LOVED being in that part of the world. It is where I spent some of the happiest moments of my childhood and now, of my adulthood. We have already made plans to go back next December. It is not the home of my deep heart the way Norway is, but it is important to me, emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually. Magnificent natural beauty! History! Great art and architecture! Interesting food and drink! Yes to Bavaria! And Austria, too! I'm not through with you yet!

Oh, the delicious confections in Munich! We succumbed, often.

The rococco grotto at the Residenz Museum in Munich wowed me with its rich textures and quirky figures!

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a place personally important to me. David and I spent the day there, wandering, sketching, eating, drinking. Of course!

 

More Bavarian dining and sketching:

And just a quick sketch of the mountain shapes that thrilled me there. I have more of these. They will provide lots of visual and emotional information for later paintings.

I am so excited about 2016. I will tell more in the next few days. Happy, happier, happiest new year to all of you!