We spent quite a bit of time in Dublin this summer on two seperate trips. We use it as our staging ground on our european excursions. Plus, I can see some cousins. On our way back to america, we clear customs in Dublin which makes dealing with flying a lot easier. There’s a lot of cool buildings that don’t happen to be pubs. I chose this one to draw.
Our friend, the art teacher Benoit Lacroix told Arnaud that he should draw this scene in Toulouse. All I saw was an iron fence and a garbage can. Benoit was convincing Aranud and Jean-Christophe that there was an enourmous building next door that they could jam into their long horizontal sketchbooks making it fabulous. I never would have chosen to draw this but I rolled up my sleeves and pulled a…
Shutters are the thing I’m attracted to most in France. I sought some out pretty quickly. It took 3 to 4 hours to complete this, so my time was precious. While I drew, artists approached and wanted to talk. Therefore, I temporarily postpone my sketching. Sometimes while I’m conversing, other artists join the fray. Usually I have a few completed sketchbooks in my knapsack to show folks. I inject…
Trying to regain strength in Toulouse, I had to resort to one of my drawing tricks. Jet-lagged, battered and melting in the heatwave, I knew I couldn’t draw the first location my european artist friends had chosen to draw. They started to draw a scene by a canal. Knowing I didn’t have the strength, I chose to draw a few of the artists sitting around us instead. I could take my time and only do a…
We arrived 2 hours early to JFK airport for our flight to Europe. It was delayed 5 hours. We boarded at 1:30 in the morning. The plane taxied the runway for half an hour until our flight was cancelled because the crew reached their maxium of work hours and had to be relieved from that shift. We got back home at 3:30 am. Slept. Back to JFK the next day for a rescheduled 4:00 pm flight. Two hour…
I just spent a week in Toulouse with 900 fellow artists at a sketching symposium that overtook the entire French city. The streets were filled with many notable illustrators from around the globe. The heatwave added to the difficuly factor for me when drawing because my work is so labor intensive. Everyone was drawing live in public at all hours covering every inch of available space. Locals and…
The Museum of Natural History in New York has a display of important sports trophies throughout the years. Some include baseball’s World Series trophy, Pro football’s Lombardi trophy, Olympic gold medals, basketball championship rings, and many tennis trophies. I sat and drew while people around me stared in wonder at all these treasures. They didn’t have a World Cup though.
In Luxembourg, the tram and buses are free. All day long you get to travel all over the place for no charge. The tram even goes to the airport for free. Plus, it’s totally modern and brand new. The best perk I’ve ever encountered in a city.
The architect and artist, Arnaud Meyer lives in Luxembourg. He invited Yun and I to dinner at his house along with some friends of ours. Of course, Mauro came and our pal Jean-Luc too. The dinner was full to the brim with architects. Not only is everyone in Luxembourg an architect but they can all draw excellently. All kidding aside, it was a very memorable evening at a friend’s house in a faraway…
After France, we ended up in Luxembourg. Turns out, I have people in that city. One of them is the artist and architect, Mauro Doro. He speaks like 4 languages but not english. We communicate through pantamime which actually works out pretty great and is often hilarious. When I wander the streets in Luxembourg with Mauro, It’s like being with George Clooney. Everyone mobs him. He looks at me with…
My first morning in Rouen, I went with Jean-Christophe to sketch the Rouen Cathedral. It is the most elaborate decorated piece of architecture ever. As we began to draw, we thought maybe we bit off more than we could chew. We just kept at it because of our motto, “never give up.” Eventually we each got an illustration out of it. Jean-Christophe said it was like drawing lace.
Jean-Christophe Defline and I settled in front of this pink building in Rouen. The structure felt quite human. It seemed like the building could start talking to us as if we were in some live action, Studio Ghibli film. Due to the heat, I drank about 10 bottles of cold Perrier that afternoon. At every cafe we stopped in for refreshments, we seemed to know a dozen people. Jean-Christophe and I are…
Jean-Christophe Defline and I found a cool little side street to draw in Rouen. Even though it was early in the morning, the temperatures were already approaching 90 degrees farenheit. There was a delivery truck parked where we had set up. When the driver opened the back to remove his products, it turned out to be a refridgerated truck. We were in heaven as cold air streamed out of the vehicle.…
This is what people see when they walk past me and I’m drawing on the street. There were hundreds of illustrators on the streets of Rouen. Whenever we stopped in a cafe, the owner would come out and ask us if we were coming back next year. We told them that we choose a different venue each year. They were always disappointed. They told us that the artists were the nicest, well behaved, and…
A series of little drawings I did in Rouen and Luxembourg. They range from ornate objects on the side of buildings, to door knockers, parts of statues, and a Hulk head on display in an art gallery. I’m quite good at creating these messes.
The first thing you notice when you arrive in Rouen is the gorgeous train station. It really sets the tone for the rest of the town. The perfect place to meet people, especially if you are a bunch of artists sitting all in a row on camping stools under a shady spot facing the facade. Curious onlookers just have to see what the hell is going on. We had to take breaks from sketching every 10 minutes…
There was a heatwave when I was in Rouen. When we drew at lunch, we had to be under the shade of an awning. This day the steeple of Saint-Ouen was peeking above the restaurant roofs. I did the best I could under the adverse conditions. The intense heat sapped our energy but we just had to power through. I had to show the hunderds of other artists drawing on the streets that I could share their…
We spent a week in Rouen, France. It was the site of this year’s French Urban Sketchers gathering. I’ve come to know many of the artists well, seeing as this was my third year attending. Rouen is a compact little city strewn with many eye-popping gothic churches. It’s also the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. I don’t think most people in France have been there. I am working my way…
Museum of Natural History.
On a recent trip to London we stayed in a friend’s club instead of a hotel. It was like being in a Time Machine. Creaky old wooden staircases, marble busts everywhere, and lots of paintings of Earls and Lords hanging about. I sketched a lot of its history over a few days when I had free time.