Rome, room with a view.

A leftover from the Rome trip, a month ago. I had made this drawing when my wife was under the shower, it's the view out of the window of our Rome hotel room (hotel Galileo, near Statione Termini). I managed to fill the basic colours, but had to quit before I finished it.
Last Wednesday I as sitting alone in a restaurant waiting for dinner, so I had time to add some colours and details out of memory.

Unne Tèsj in Roame.

A little street scene in Rome which I hadn't posted so far.
The ladies wanted to buy a leather handbag (one of those things we men feel are a nuisance to carry around - that's why we have trouser pockets. But to women it serves as a vault with unbelievable contents). In our local Limburg dialect called "Unne Tèsj".
Anyway, in the time they choose the proper bag, negotiated and bought two of them, I managed to make this little sketch of the scene. Including painting it.
It was at a little street stall at Via Della Vergini, near the Spanish Stairs. And to be honest, they got a pretty good bargain at buying them.

Rome Via dei Fori Imperiali

Sketch of the Via dei Fori Imperiali, and the backside of the Capitoline hill.
I sketched it on location, but as we were travelling as a group, I could not finish it. I painted it in the hotel a few days later.
Still, I love these scenes with these beautiful pines.

Rome Trevi Fountain

We just returned from a nice long extended weekend in Rome, accompanied with some good friends.
For about 20 years we have this little group (originally family, but nowadays others are included as well). And each month we put aside some money in order to visit a city within Europe every few years.
This time Rome. A perfect place for a trip of this kind: a lot to see, a varied city center, walkable, good food, nice people and very nice weather. Soething we could use after this cold and wet April (see my previous post).
This is an impression of the Trevi fountain, a regular tourist trap.

Volterra Leporello (3)

Here is the third installment of the Volterra Leporello.  Series of drawings of Volterra itself. The top one is the view from the "balze", a cliff on the western side of the city.
I left out one drawing, a drawing of a real original Roman theatre. But I don't like it. In each Leporello there is always one substandard drawing of which I wished I could cut it out. But that's the whole idea, you can't.
:(
Anyway, the other view is the view fro the park Settembre XX, where you can see the houses sloping down towards the valley below.

And the final drawing is a concise plan of Volterra. 

 Enough Volterra for this year....

Volterra leporello (2)

Here is the second set of drawings, these were made in Monteriggione.
The students had to do work there too, while we were sitting on a nice terrace in the town square.
It was a bit chilly, but a good espresso made up for that.
The top is the little medieval church, the second the bar and terrace next to the one we were sitting on.
And the bottom one the heavily guarded main entrance of the enclosed city.

Volterra leporello (1)

During the Volterra trip (already a month ago!) I was able to make a series of sketches. Like last year I decided to make leporello, but I was not able to make it as long as the previous one. Just about 2 meters.

On the top you see the total strip. I will show the different scenes in more detail one by one.
The top one is the little chapel at the Porta San Felice.
The second is the view through that same Porta.

The third scene is the view over the Tuscan hills. Furthermore a medieval carved stone, with the Volterra municipal symbols, which you can find on one of the townhouses on the main Piazza dei Priori.

Milan cemetery

I am not sure to post this.
It's a drawing I made (on location) on the Milan Cimitero Monumentale, but I am not satisfied with this one at all.
The first version was too warm, colourfull and unbalanced, so I added black ink. But to no avail. I decided to wash out all colour and much of the ink. The result was a greyish scene, not much value. Like through fog; quite fitting for the subject, but the drawing became unreadable.
So I added ink again. And white paint for highlights.

But still: somehow it does not work.
Any ideas what I did wrong?
How I can improve this drawing?
Please let me know!

Expo Milan

Two sketches from the expo in Milan. There were long lines at the popular countries, so I only visited the less populated pavilions.
Above the very interesting african countries. I made this sketch at the Mauritania house. There was a group of women waiting to make henna tattoos. They saw me drawing, and offered me sweet mint tea. Very hospitable.
The other is of the Oman pavilion: a nice chance to draw something exotic without having to cross the world.

Milan, Expo 2015

Just returned from a trip to Milan tonight. My second visit to Italy in two weeks, and the third in three months. Time to recapitulate and do something with all the sketches that I made.
I visited the Milan Expo (worldexhibition) with a group of architects last friday.
The Expo was very impressing, but also very crowded. There were waiting lines of several hours before most of the pavillions. I saw one line, wrapping around the Japan exhibition, which according the sign should take 5 hours......

Did not make many sketches, it took all my time to visit the terrain with over 150 exhibitions.
 This is a drawing of the Italian Pavillion, a beautiful building resembling a starcruiser from Star Wars.
I made this sketch while it was raining outside, it was pretty crowded inside.

Florence: waiting for the Uffizi

Waiting in line for the Uffizi Museum in Florence, for two hours. Enough time to make this sketch.
It was worth it.

Sta. maria della concezione

A little morbid scene this time. This is a scene in one of the chapels of the Capucine monastry Santa Maria della Concezione. They used thousands of skulls and bones of deceased monks to decorate the chapels.
Obviously we were not allowed to take pictures, but a drawing was less of a problem.

Rome: Miguele

A beggar at the steps of the church Sant'Agnese in Agone, on the tourist ridden Piazza Navona.
He notticed me drawing him - obviously, a guy like that will observe the public around him with a lot of attention.
He told me he liked the sketch very much, but the was after he received my decent tip.
He told me his name was Miguele. These steps were his regular hangout, As a matter of fact, I had made the photograph I show here quite accidentally two days before.

Bernini on Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona, in the centre of Rome is probably the most crowded square. I made this drawing of the big foutain in the middle (Fontane di Fiumi, fountain of the four waters). the four sides represent 4 continents, with its major rivers symbolized: the Donau, the Nile, The Ganges and Rio de la Plata.
The fountain was made by Bernini, and features in the Dan Brown book of course.
I wanted to draw the oblisk (on top), and the church (St. Agnese in Agone) in the background as well, but all together would have made the fountain too small. Especially in a A5 booklet.

Rome: forum Augustus

Drawn along the central Via dei fori imperiali, in the midst of the excavations.
The strong forms of the pinetrees struck me in this particular view.

Rome: EUR

This is the Rome as Mussolini would have liked to see.
He wanted to show the world how brilliant fascism was (I am cynical), so he organized a World Expo meant to open in 1942, the "Esposizione Universale di Roma".
A whole new borough, just outside the city center, with wide lanes and impressive neoclassical buildings.
Quite a megalomatic enterprise, and this building was meant to be the highlight: the Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro. (the palace for the civilization of work).
It's also sometimes referred to as "the square colosseum".

Anyway, a worldwar interfered, and the area was never totally finished. What is left is a city layout and some stark buildings, whose architecture is not even all that bad. It's meant to impress, and it does that very well.
I just get a foul taste in my mouth recalling where these ideas originated.

Castel Sant'angelo

A sketch of the Castel Sant'angelo.
The one from the books of Dan Brown.
We had just returned from the tourist ridden Vatican city, and it was nice a quiet along the river bank.

Rome Colosseum

Two sketches of the Colosseum in Rome. The bottom one was made while standing in line to get a ticket.
I mean, the amount of tourists in Rome was huge, in this case we had o stand in line for 3/4 of an hour. Nothing compared to the row in front of the Vatican Museum though - 2 hours.....

But I had to be quick.
The top one was made in the Colosseum itself.
I had forgotten how impressive the building is.

Rome Pantheon

Rome the Pantheon.
I visited the city with my son, Mart. A good father-son moment in time. We had a terrific time: enjoyed the immense heat, saw all the beautiful places, enjoyed good coffee and italian food. What more to wish for.

Volterra: a wrinkled terrace

Experimenting with urban sketching and wrinkled paper. It's funny, the watercolour will let itself steer very stubbornly on the glued on calque paper. So you have to concentrate on the major forms and values. A good exercise, how to tell a story with limited information.