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My Favourite Coffee Pot – Broken

When an old favourite object breaks, I take a picture or make a drawing before throwing it away.

My wife has promised to try to re-attach the handle with epoxy glue. Besides being a sculptor and an archeologist, she is a professional restorer specialized in polychrome sculpture. So maybe there is still hope for this old pot.

My long-suffering sneakers

Very old high tops I had to finally throw away in Paris. They were not a famous brand and made in Czechoslovakia, but they had lasted long. So long that the textile parts had faded from black to purple.

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Senate square, Helsinki

Senate square, Helsinki
I kept being interrupted by heavy downpours that almost washed away this drawing. I opened my umbrella and switched to water-proof markers.

Most of the buildings on the square were designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, all in the neoclassical style.

I love this square because it exemplifies the forces that shape a city. On its four side are:
1) The Church
2) The University
3) The Senate
4) A mixed bag of commerce: Shops, a bank, a café that also shows art movies (one of my favourites, but now closed for renovation). The mayor’s residence is squeezed a bit on the side, and there used to be a police station, but they got bumped.

– And The Czar in the middle of the square.

I’ll get some more sketches done later when the tourist buses leave…

Sketchbook Helsinki August 26, 2010_1

Yes, it’s a huge ferryboat behind the building. It’s bigger than the buildings in the old town.  They cross the Baltic between Helsinki and Stockholm daily.

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A ray of sunlight during a rainstorm

Mixed media on paper.

There was a break in the clouds and the sun transformed the highway into a river of gold.

I spent my lunch hour trying to capture the effect.

This is a view from the city of Espoo towards Helsinki. The little peaks you can just barely make out behind the bay are in downtown Helsinki. In the summer I come to work by bicycle, on a bike path running in the woods on the right side of the highway, over a series of little islands.

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The rain it raineth every day…

Sketchbook_Paris_1991_032, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.

Second day of heavy rain, and more to come.
My plans of sketching outside have to be postponed.
James Gurney has a great list of other things going awry when doing art en plein air:
Gamestoppers on Gurney Journey

So, here’s a post of houseplants – in many ways the ideal model, as they never move or get impatient.

Sketchbook_Helsinki_1992_037

Sketchbook_Helsinki_1992_041

Sketchbook_Helsinki_1994_076

Sketchbook_Helsinki_2009_050-2

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A reluctant model – our cat

Sketchbook_Helsinki_2009_029, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.

Our cat Nestor Burma (named after a detective created by Léo Malet. Il met le mystère K.O. )does not like to be photographed or sketched. Either he fakes a sudden urge to go explore the other room or just looks annoyed.

In this drawing he lacks detail, as he left almost immediately.

Sketchbook_Helsinki_2009_004

Here he is, looking annoyed and moving around.
Sketchbook_elokuu 04, 2010_4

You have to catch him in a deep sleep to finish a sketch.

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Travel Sketchbook 2010: Tallinn

Drawn from the boat between Helsinki and Tallinn.
Luckily there’s still time for a long weekend away.

Tallinn old town, seen from Toompea ramparts.

Tallinn is just two hours away from Helsinki, but it’s another world. An older and in many ways more cultured city, full of history.  No city in Finland has managed to keep its medieval center intact, and Helsinki is a new town, mostly built in the 19th -20th century.

Alexander Nevsky cathedral (1894-1900).

Done in watercolour from a sidewalk café in Tallinn.