Sketching in Berlin

It is already over a week since I returned from Berlin, but at last, I have sorted my photos. Despite my best efforts at artistic photography, none of the photos were really that inspiring. I had more fun sketching in my Skizzenbuch than photographing. Here you can see me enjoying a glass of wine near Sevigny Platz and drawing the little boutique-lined street.

I try to draw everywhere I go, though sometimes I am more conscientious than others.

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Watercolor Wedding Portrait in York Minster

Last week Mom and I went to York to see the pre-Christmas decorations, drink mulled wine and tour York Minster, which is the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. It also has the greatest concentration of preserved medieval stained glass in any cathedral in Britain. While Mom and I were gawking at the beauty surrounding us, we noticed a bride walk into the transept on the arm of her father. An organ voluntary played, and they processed down the aisle. A wedding was about to start in York Minster.

Seeing the bride, overwhelmed with happiness and emotion, in such a grand setting inspired me to paint a picture of the moment. There is no way I could ever capture the intricate detail of the minster architecture in a small watercolor (it is 5 inches by 7 inches), so I left that out and focused on creating the feeling of space by leaving the page blank. Here you see the bride and her father processing behind a minster official.

 

Here are a few photos from our weekend in York....

The Shambles is one of Britain's best preserved medieval streets

York Castle

A week of luxury in Ibiza

I spent a week in a private villa on the mediterranean island of Ibiza. It was a bit of a guilty pleasure, as I don't have much time left before my final show. However, family friends offered us the use of their serviced mansion on a private cove, and we couldn't refuse.

To appease the conscience, I brought my sketchbooks and did a little scribbling in between trips to the beach and whisky-and-sodas on the terrace.

Archaeology in Tunisia

The Dig In Leptiminus: Lamta

The museum in Lamta, where I did my work

The view from my desk

My Desk: Drawing pottery reconstructions

Back at the dig  house, photographing pottery

Fishermen on the Med

The view from the dig house

Drying our laundry in the Mediterranean breeze

Staying cool in the shade of the dig house

Ribat: Lamta

Monastir and Sfax, El Jem and Surrounds

The amphitheatre in El Jem is larger and better preserved 

than the coliseum in Rome

City walls of Sfax

Ribat in Monastir

Swimming in the Mediterranean

Tunis and Sidi Bou Said

Tunis Mosque

Tunis: the arch connecting the old city (Medina) with the new

Tunis: in the Medina 

Markets in Tunis

Tunis looks like an African version of Paris

The blue doors in Sidi Bou Said

Sidi Bou Said tumbles into the sea

Tunisia is one of my favourite countries in the world

Roman Pottery Profiles (North Africa)

I mailed a disc of 250 (ish) jpegs to Toronto today. Each illustration is a profile of a roman pot from Leptis Minus in North Africa. Here you see two of the more complete amphorae. The other 248 were varying sizes from complete pieces to itty-bitty sherds.

I had a misunderstanding with one of our tutors yesterday at college. She told me that my drawings were too exacting, too accurate; they needed to be looser and more scribbly. I understand her opinion, but when I told her my background (and the need for swift accuracy) she looked nonplussed. I cannot help that the instinct for accuracy leaks in to my creative work.

These pottery illustrations should be published in 2009 in a monograph covering all aspects of Leptis Minus. I have been working for a long time on illustrations for this book: building reconstructions, statuary, small finds, and pottery (...of course, pottery).

When I went to Lamta (modern-day Leptis Minus) this summer one of the dig directors said to me, "I've been warned about you. They told me you don't like drawing pottery profiles." I laughed. She added quietly, "I can't blame you." Handling pottery sherds certainly isn't my favourite: they have an odd, sand-papery texture; they are dusty; they break my fingernails; and they are little abstract pieces of broken pots. All I usually have to work with is a minuscule rim sherd, from which I have to reconstruct as complete a profile as possible.

Drawing the profile is a non-intuitive process. First you visualize a cross section of the rim in your hand and draw it. Then you measure the curvature of the rim to determine the diameter of the pot. Once you have the measurements, you reflect the cross section on to the opposite side and draw the outer markings. Some people work with a curve comb or plasticine to form a mold of the pot to trace. I find it much easier to quickly measure with my eye, and then draw as accurately as I can on the first try. Once you've drawn several hundred pots you develop an instinct for the rim shapes. The profile pictured above was just a rim, nothing else was left of the pot.

I don't underestimate the significance of these illustrations, as the specifics of roman pottery (where and how they were made, and in what style) can tell a lot about the culture and economics of a region.

If I have to draw pot profiles, I much prefer ARS (african red slip, to those of you who are sniggering). They have a silky smooth texture (no rough hands and broken nails) and they are often decorated with appliqué or incised patterns. Very beautiful.

I'll post an ARS or two for comparison in a day or two.