Sunday, July 13, 2008

A place of great importance

I had to raise really early today despite it was sunday morning. I drove my artistic friends Barbro and Lennart to the railwaystation. They were heading off for Florence- (oh, no I´m not jealous at all). Since the gas prize these days is so high I felt I had to take advantage of the miles I had already driven and continued for half an hour to my friend Susanne for sunday breakfast. She lives in a very beautiful landscape close to lake Hornborga-sjön. And it is in these parts I organize my 4-day watercolor class each summer. Today i decided to spend the rest of the day making some preparations for my class, such as checking out places to sit, nice motifs and practical stuff as parking places. I started out down by the lake and I will publish some sketches from there tomorrow. Afterwards I continued to Varnhem, a great historical place. It was an important friary in the 12th century and the burial place for some of Swedens first kings. Today you can walk around and look at the remains of the friary and visit the church. It has changed it´s appearance over the years but the older parts are from around 1100. It is a pretty complicated building to draw and the perspective really put you to the test with all the steep angles that raise above you. It´s fun though. Since some of you wonder how I make these sketches I will publish an old painting I did some years in watercolor. I like that too but these days I prefer the must faster sketches and the coloring in photoshop (an increasing restlessness maybe).
Somehow I think that I tend to draw and paint in the same illustrative style whatever media I use. I don´t know what you think or if you have the same experience.
It was a nice day though- the only thing missing in the picture was a cisterciensermonk strolling around. Maybe I´ll add one......

6 comments:

melissa said...

Hi! Just found you via your comment on Suzanne B's blog. I have to say I'm a fan and I'll be back!

Anita Davies said...

Beautiful watercolours!!!
Wish I could enlarge them a little.

Margaret Ann said...

Wonderful clean lines...beautiful!

andrea joseph's sketchblog said...

gosh, you're good. soooooo good.

E-J said...

What beautiful work. I must add you to my blogroll right now!

Anonymous said...

I would appreciate more visual materials, to make your blog more attractive, but your writing style really compensates it. But there is always place for improvement