Le chemain d´Arles

A week spent walking a branch of the way of St. James in southern France.

Dänemark

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

Marokko

Winter escape to Morocco with the main goal of avoiding everything cold, dreary and european. The part about skipping the cold didn´t quite work out though. 

Route: Ryanair flight to Fès, bus to Essaouira via Casablanca, then passing Agadir, on to Tafraoute, joining an organised tour to see the Anti-Atlas and Sahara, then going back to Fès via Ouarzazate.

Bluest skies over the Mellah of Fès. This used to be the jewish quarter, but the majority of moroccan jews either emigrated to Israel or moved to the newer parts of town. 

Nowadays the population in the Mellah is muslim.

 

Leather tannery in the Medina. Only natural ingredients are used, as another overeager salesman assures us, like pidgeon excrement and chalk. It smells like rotting flesh.

 

Much tastier: Thé a la mente. Green tea, fresh mint leaves, and sugar chunks the size of oranges.

Essaouira back alley, trying to find some food that isn´t tajine or couscous. I´m not sure what we had, but it might have been bowel soup. At least we went somewhere that wasn´t listed in the Lonely Planet!

 

Oasis near Tafraoute, spectacular mountain backdrop, turquoise water, date palms, there were even frogs. Conclusion: Some things are too pretty to draw.

I didn´t see much of Zagora, except this view from the hotel terrace. It´s also a very dusty place.

Ouarzazate´s Medina.

strandbunker

during the 2nd world war, more than 5000 bunkers were built on denmark´s coasts to complete the atlantic wall, so the scandinavian coasts would be "protected" from an allied invasion.
many of those bunkers remain there more than 65 years later, sunken into the sand, crumbling...
it´s a strange architecture. all that bulky, graffiti-sprayed concrete..
again, very cold on the beach. drew each bunker in 1-2 minutes, then wandered on to the next, trying to warm my fingers inbetween sketches. no choice but to do all the cross-hatching from memory.

winter portraits

 

All drawings done during the hvide sande trip, outside temperature around - 8 °C made indoor sketching very appealing... my models complied and dedicated themselves to their holiday activities, which consisted of drinking wine, watching tv, searching the internet for christmas recipes and crocheting socks.

hvide sande #1

 

i spent some days in denmark shortly after christmas, in hvide sande on the west coast.
this is a vacation village covered in snow, seen from the dunes, and below, the swans huddling together in the town´s harbour. it was so cold that the salt water froze.

toy cars

Actually, these are vehicles on the airport of Valencia. For the first time i´ve noticed how strange some of them look- asymmetric, bulky and square-edged, with some hidden, mysterious purpose i could not decipher.

Catalan pyrenees

The Aigüestortes y Estany St. Maurici National Park is in the catalonian part of the pyrenees (about 60 km west of Andorra).

I did these drawings in july, on a three day hiking trip from Boí to Espot. We spent the whole day walking,  with me getting blisters on my feet in the process and then resting those very tired feet on the rocky ground, sleeping under the open sky. A great trip, thanks mostly to my more adventurous, persistent and knowledgeable comrade from the alpes, Erica.
I decided i´d rather take food and a sleeping bag than art supplies-so it was just a black micron and a muji brush pen, and the smallest, thinnest sketchbook  i had.
I´m glad i had to go all minimalistic on these ones.