California Sketches

This week I returned home from a 4 1/2 week vacation in California. I hadn't been away for such a long time in more than 10 years! It was also my first time in the US. We had a great time, I've seen so many wonderful things, visited amazing places and met the greatest people.

Normally I do quite a bit of sketching when I'm on vacation but this time there was so mcuh to do that I hardly had the time to sit down and draw.

And some sketches from the awesome San Diego Zoo:

Portugal: Summer Vacation 2013

Last Friday I returned from two wonderful weeks in Portugal. It was good to take a break from things but it always feels good to get back home to. I took a couple of sketchbooks and a lot of pens, pencils and markers but I didn't do as much sketching as I'd normally do.

Im not sure why. During the first week I hardly drew anything at all, only after we got to Lisbon did I begin to do some sketches. I still had a great time and took a lot of photos. These are all the sketches I did.So only one post this year. Hope you had a great summer too, I promise to do more sketching on my next trip!

Marker and ink in a Moleskin Kraft cahier sketchbook. 

Vacation Sketches - Part 3.

This is the last batch of sketches from my vacation in Italy, last month. All of these were done along the shores of Lake como. We stayed in the lovely town of Menaggio. The last sketch of this post gives you an impression of the view we had from our balcony. 

Ink on paper, digital tones with Photoshop.

Vacation Sketches - Part 2.

Some more sketches from my recent trip to Italy. Just like the previous post all of these were done on the same day. After a week at Lake Garda we moved to Lake Como for the second week of our vacation. We took a train to Milano, and from there another train to Como. (We had to go first class since second class was sold out. At Como this posh, old American couple asked us if we were busted for not having first class tickets! (I guess they were surprised by our big backpacks; they must have thought only boring old farts travel first class.)

At Como we took a boat to Menaggio, where we stayed. It was a long trip, almost three hours. I didn't mind, I love Lake Como and I really enjoyed slowly cruising the lake. We found a good, quiet spot by the window so I took out my sketchbook. I was sketching the entire trip. Although the boat was real slow, I still had to draw real fast: the view was constantly changing. These are some of the sketches I did. I quite like the sketch of the man in his rowboat, above. It is actually a very small sketch, only 3 by 2 cm.  

I'll post some more of these sketches soon!

Vacation Sketches - Part 1.

Hey there! Long time no posts. So far this year has been a bit of a struggle. But things are looking up, and I have just returned from a nice vacation in Italy where I did quite a bit of sketching. This is just a first batch of sketches, I'll post some more soon. 

It was funny, I brought three sketchbooks and like a 100 pens, pencils and even waterpaint. I ended up using only the sketchbook with the worst paper and four of my most plain pens. I had fun just sketching away, though. The sketchbook -a normal sized, plain paper moleskine, with a soft cover- fitted perfectly in the side pocket of my shorts together with the pens: so it was easy to take 'em everywhere.

We spend a week at Lake Garda and then another week at Lake Como. These drawings are all from the first week at Lake Garda, I actually believe I did all of them on the same day.

All of these were done with a Copic Multiliner and a Papermate Flair, I threw in some tones with photoshop too.  I'll post more when I get around to scanning the rest of the book. Because the paper is rather thin though, I can't make good scans of all of my sketches. Still there should still be quite a few left that are good enough to post.