watercolour

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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.

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Travel Sketchbooks 2010: The view from Ile Verte at low tide

A small island in the St-Lawrence river that you can only reach during high tide. Around forty inhabitants and passing whales. This is the south coast, green and muddy. The north coast is colder and rocky.

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Travel Sketchbooks 2010: Festival international de jazz de Montréal

Another great jazz festival in Montréal, with plenty of excellent free concerts. I managed to sketch some of the performers.

Downtown Montréal.

Black Joe Lewis

Trombone Shorty

Allen Toussaint

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Travel Sketchbook Malcesine 2009

Another great hiking holiday.
Mountains, a clear lake and Verona just a bus ride away.
Goethe got into trouble sketching this castle. He was suspected of being a spy studying the fortifications. Nowadays sketching it only draws mild curiosity…

The trail on top of the ridge of Monte Baldo, as seen from the top Cima Delle Pozzette (2132m). Done during a pause while hiking.

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Travel Sketchbook, Söll 2009



Sketchbook_Söll_2009_006, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.

Clouds moving in at sunset.
Söll, Austria.
Watercolour and gouache in a small Moleskine.



Sketchbook_Söll_2009_010, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.



Sketchbook_Söll_2009_002-2, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.



Sketchbook_Söll_2009_004, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.

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Studies of a single view over time



Winter Landscape: Sunrise, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.

I started painting a small watercolour of the same view everytime I noticed something new.

It’s amazing how much a single hill can change from day to day.



Winter Landscape: Sunset, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.



Spring Landscape: Sunset, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.



Fall Landscape #1, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.



Fall Landscape #5, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.



winter Landscape #9, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.

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Travel Sketchbooks

After a while routines started to settle, and I drew less and less of my everyday surroundings.

Just as people normally don’t snap hundreds of photos on their way to work, but photograph everything they see when on holiday, my sketchbooks became synonymous with travel journals.



Filofax 2003 Montréal, originally uploaded by Brin d’Acier.

When on holiday, I drew on everything at hand, including my Filofax.

Hakone – Lake Ashi and Mt Fuji. After three days of waiting in the mist, suddenly the clouds parted in the morning.

The hotel’s room service menu included the following item: Watercolor kit so you can paint your own views of Mt. Fuji.
I found the idea of ordering painting supplies from room service great I had to do it. The kit proved to be as good as their breakfasts.
We still have the waterbrush that came with it.

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Watercolour Sketchbook, Hämeenlinna 1990

I started experimenting with larger notebooks so that I could include more detail. We spent the summer in Hämeenlinna. While my girlfriend excavated a lost viking-age city, I drew and painted.

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Weather studies, Helsinki 1989-90

When I moved back to Finland after ten years abroad, I found myself a stranger in my own country. I started exploring it, keeping a travel journal. I recorded the changes in light and weather, studied once familiar landmarks that had become exotic.

These watercolour sketches were done from the seaside at the southernmost tip of Helsinki, and show the 18th century fortress island of Suomenlinna, often called Gibraltar of the North. It is a just a ferry ride away from downtown, but in many ways remains a small village. In the summer it is overrun by tourists and picnickers, but when the last ferry has left, it returns to a slower rhythm. I lived on the island as a child, and came to school by ferry. In the winter, when the sea froze, I walked to school over the ice. Yes, it was safe, they even ran a road for cars over the sea, and there was a wooden sidewalk running alongside it.