Chilehaus

Chilehaus is one of my favorite buildings in Hamburg. It was designed by the architect Fritz Höger and built between 1922 and 1924. Despite of its enormous size and its dark bricks, it has a touch of lightness. 
Last Saturday I had the opportunity with the Hamburg Urban Sketchers to make some sketches of it.

Amsterdam - USk Symposium 2019

The sketch-highlight of 2019. The USk symposium in Amsterdam. This time, I decided to not participate in the workshops. The sketchwalks were open for everybody and that was what I really wanted - to spend 4 days of sketching, accompanied by old and new sketcher friends.

Amsterdam is a beautiful, big and touristic city. All the „grachten“ (canals) and bridges provide a fabulous and unique atmosphere. 
 

The main traffic in the city consists of bicycles and boats. Every boat, private or public, was so cozy inside! All of them had at least pillows, table cloths, drinks and candles.

Houseboats are all over the place and each of them were surrounded by flowers and many other details that I couldn’t really identify.

And all these old buldings! Beautifully old, each of them with its own character. It was very hot weather during the symposium so I couldn't really choose my motives freely. I had to sit in the shadow and as we know: the sun is moving... so the time for a sketch was always limited. 

I stayed in a small hotel just in the hottest part of the red light district. This was not a good choice for me. In the evenings the street was full of red light tourists, who where wandering up and down the street, watching the half naked women posing behind red lighted windows. In the mornings the street was empty of people but full of rubbish. 

So I experienced two sides of Amsterdam and I guess that is part of the city too. Every morning I happily left the hotel to sketch beautiful parts of the city. And every evening I tried to stay as long as possible with other sketchers drinking & drawing, going back to the hotel as late as possible.

In these 4 days I got into such a sketch flow - it was wonderful and I hope to be able to keep it!

 

 
 

Blankenese, Mai 2019

Finally spring is here and I can sketch outside. Here are my last sketches from Blankenese.

 

I discovered a new zigzag book from Hahnemühle 14cm x 14cm, which animated me to make a Blankenese zigzag book. On one side I did the hillside, from light house to light house, looking at it from the water side. 

On the other side I sketched charming corners in the "Treppenviertel" (stair quarter)

Spring in Hamburg

After the long and grey winter in Hamburg spring is like a green explosion. 
Here are some tries to express this colorful event.