Naturhistorisches Museum

Sketches drawn in the museum of natural history in Mainz, which is located in former convent St. Klara. The collection of stuffed and mounted animals is quite diverse, with a lot of very old exhibits of nowadays extinct animals. There´s a lot to draw, so it took me a while till the feeling of being in a cemetery sunk in. All those animals, looking at you from their glass eyes, frozen in a position some taxidermist thought was lifelike, in the dimly lit halls of that former cloister ..it was a bit eerie.

Im Buchstabenmuseum

The Museum of Letters is a Berlin institution dedicated to collecting and preserving letters. Some of them are vintage advert letterings, other letters belonged to old train stations that were renamed after the Berlin wall fell and thus became obsolete.
They were in the middle of renovating when i was visiting, so signs were being carried around and rows of letters were stacked against the walls. I really liked how the letters looked in piles and stacks, like a threedimensional collage- very nice for drawing.

Straßburg

Rue du Maroquin

Berlin

I very much enjoyed meeting fellow sketchers in Berlin! After Lapin´s exhibition opening we had dinner and drinks in Friedrichshain and on Sunday Urban Sketchers Berlin organised a Sketchcrawl at the HumboldtBox, which apart from great company offered nice views of Berliner Dom and Unter den Linden. It got a little cold on the terrace, so i drew the colourful rikscha that was part of a seemingly random exhibition inside. A grumpy guard told me to not use my watrecolours, so Katrin and me had to finish colours at home.

Darmstadt

Autumn Sketchcrawls with Birgit, Andreas & Lena in Darmstadt, mostly on Mathildenhöhe, an Art nouveau artist´s colony from 1899.

Felsenland

Natural sandstone monument in the palatine forest.

Castle ruins near Dahn.

Völklinger Hütte

 Völklingen Ironworks is a world heritage site in Saarland region that dates back to 1873. The plant was closed in 1986, the year i was born. Nowadays it´s a museum, but apart from the rust it seems like the last steelworkers just left.

Photography by HC Adam

pfälzer potpourri

Pirmasens, sunset and Hotel Matheis- soon to be demolished.

15 minute drawing frenzy: Rathaus Schifferstadt

Käfer/Kaiserslautern

Eine Hochzeit

A wedding in the castle of Kirchberg. A view from the highest room of the castle, the "aerie", and the party in the great hall which dates back to the 16th century. These were drawn as a gift for the couple.

Dänemark

A week in Denmark, spent in Aarhus sketching with Ea and Anette, in northwestern Jutland at the beach and in Kopenhagen, mostly sightseing.

Mainz

Spent a Saturday sketching in Mainz, with Birgit. We started out with some coffee and icecream and slowly made our way to the old town, where we sketched the surroundings of the Mainzer Dom. Afterwards we met some friends at Volkspark, where the annual Weinfest was held.

 

Warszawa

Some days spent in Warsaw, drawing socialist monuments, restaurant interiors and people.

Apparently, a true Warsaw experience includes the visit to a milkbar,  an eastern european version of a self service restaurant. You pay for your meal at one counter and pick it up at a second one, but only after the cashier has screamed "Frytki! Nalesniki!" or whatever else you ordered. Everything´s greasy, good and cheap.

The Pałac Kultury i Nauki, the Palace of Culture and Science, still Polands tallest building, a a strange soviet landmark.

Dining on chinese food on Hoza Street. Zuzanna is a waitress who works in the restaurant and when she noticed i was drawing she asked me to draw in the restaurants guestbook. While drawing some more, we kept on talking.The other guests left, the kitchen closed, and i made a drawing of Zuzanna looking like a vampire. After many cups of green tea, we left and thought that this was the best way for the holiday to end. dziękuję Dżonka!