Vesterbrogade

It's still minus degrees and the snow is covering Copenhagen, so café-sketching it was. We went to this great little café, 'Zigar Baby' on the corner of Vesterbrogade and Sundvedsgade, where we found a table by the window. It felt like the place was build on a trampolin, because everytime somebody past by our table, everything was jumping around - But who cares, it's a nice café and it was great to be out sketching again.

Velcro Baby

Our daughter has been ill for the last couple of days. Nothing seriously, just high fever. Obviously the little angle has been very poorly and hanging in our arms has been her only comfort. And for some reason her stroller was the best place to sleep during daytime. 

So my bit for this section of The International Sketchcrawl is a sketch og her stroller - actually it's vibrant green, very cool!

Going into Overdrive on Christmas sweets

We went to visit my parents for a couple of days over Christmas. My dad have this display cabinet with more than a hundred vintage cameras, enought to fill a sketchbook, I will definitely try.

In between eating, 'cause that is all you do on Christmas, I managed to draw these two old cameras. My sister's kids, who had gone into overdrive on Christmas sweets and were playing secret spies involving me as their enemy, who had to be put into armlock, were doing everything they could to disrupt me. Due to this the sketches came out a bit strange, but we had so much fun.   

Søndermarkskolen

This is the entrance to Søndermarkskolen (our local school). Our daughter will probably be running in and out of those doors sometime in the future - or most likely she will try to jump out of the windows.

This is also the last outdoor sketch of the year. The weather today has been pretty good, warm (around 4 degrees) a bit cloudy and with some showers, but the sun has shown its face too. As always the temperatures will most likely drop to way below zero in a couple of days and stay there for the next two months. The Danish weater is strange, we always have these warm days just around new year, to remind us of how cold it actually gets in January and February

Everything's for sale

I have some of my illustrations for sale on Artflakes, if you should be interested please follow this link

I will be adding more Urban sketches to the list some time soon.

My Sketch Kit

Winter has arrived in Copenhagen. Over the weekend we received quite a bit of snow and on my last sketching trip it was so cold everything in my sketch kit acted strange, and on top of that, the hairs on my watercolour brush were bent – what a misery. So I guess it is about time I do an inventory.

This is what I have in my sketch kit

Pens

I never, or very rarely, use pencils when I sketch. I like the directness and honesty I get from a line I can’t erase – and I’m too lazy to use a pencil, I just go straight in with my pens. I use two different pens; a Copic Multiliner SP size 0.2 and a Pigma Micron Size 0.1.

I love the feel the Copic pen has, it fits my hand perfect. The tip is really sharp and durable and the ink is crisp and totally black. I love these pens and have bought more of them than I really need.

The Pigma pen has a really nice and soft feel. The only problem I have with these pens is that they’re a bit too small for my hand and it seems like the tip wears down faster than it runs out of ink. But the ink is perfect, in fact I don’t think you’ll find a pen with better ink. It’s absolutely black, clean and crisp and never ever bleeds. I have tested it on coffee filters and it didn’t bleed – I’m impressed.

Brush

I use a Kolinsky sable brush from Escoda. It’s not as good as my other watercolour brushes (Isabey's Pure Kolinsky and W&N Series 7), but it’s really durable and works perfectly even after spending a rough time at the bottom of my bag.

Colours

The watercolour box I use is an old plastic box from Winsor and Newton. It’s not very big, only holds 12 colours, but it has a nice big mixing tray divided into three sections with tall edges, so I can use a lot of water when I mix my colours. I really don’t like watercolours from W&N so I have replaced them with a mix of other brands: Sennelier, Schmincke and Daler Rowney, all artists quality.

The colours go from: deep cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, three browns; raw unmber, burnt umber and brown ochre. There’s a deep quinacridone violet from Sennelier (they make the best purples and violets). A carmine red, Payne’s Grey, an olive green and an

emerald green. Two blues, an ultra marine, and some lighter one which I’m not quite sure of - probably a cobalt blue.

With these colours I can go everywhere. I can mix any hue I wish and go from sweating warm to freezing cold. I’m not a big fan of using black, for really dark areas I will mix blue, brown or brown and violet depending on the tone of the area.

Sketchbooks

I have a sketchbook fetish, I love good sketchbooks. Ideally I really only need one, but I always carry at least two around with me. One for colour sketches, and one for black and white sketches.

Lately I have started using sketchbooks from Stillman & Birn. The quality of these books is impressively high. For colours I use the Alpha Series, which is almost like hot pressed watercolour paper. Smooth enough for line drawings and enough texture and depth for watercolours. And for black and white ink sketches I use the Epsilon Series, plate finish. I used to use a Moleskine for black and white sketches, but the paper is terrible, it really makes me wonder why I have gone through so many of their sketchbooks.

For a while I used Holbein Multimedia sketchbooks for watercolour sketches. The paper in these sketchbooks is good fine grain watercolour paper, but a bit too thin. And I prefer sketchbooks with a hard back not Spiral back like the one in the Holbein Multimedia sketchbooks.

Stillman & Birn, Alpha Series Sketchbook

Miscellaneous

I found my stool in New York on our honeymoon. I think I paid around $5-6 for it, I’ll never find anything that cheap in Denmark. I store the water in a glass jar that used to contain baby food. It has got the perfect size, but most importantly, the lid keeps tight. I always got some tissue paper in my bag, which I use for cleaning and drying my brush in.

That is what I have in my bag.

still life

I used to hate doing stil life drawing. I was sitting there with my pencil, eraser, knitting needles etc.. sweating over some arrangement getting it right - and most of the time  I did get it straight on, but I never enjoyed myself.
Now I'm back doing stil life drawings and I love it. I just use a pen (either a Copic Multiliner or a Pigma Micron) no erasers or knitting needles and I don't really care if the lines are crooked or the perspective is obscured, I just draw and it's great fun.

The top drawing is an old film projector my wife found in the streets, we haven't tried it yet, but it looks cool. The two other drawings are from my parents house, an old wall clock and an old camera.

These drawings are done in my brand new sketchbook, a Stillman & Birn Epsilon Series. I'm really impressed with there sketchbooks, the paper in this book is very smooth and very suitable for line drawings, the paper could be a bit thicker, but it's still far better than my Moleskines.

Today it's minus 5 degrees out side, so it is not really possible to do any urban sketching. So in the next couple of months stil life drawings are most likely what I will publish here.

Hardenbergvej in the freezing cold

This is one of the great extension you'll find on some house in Copenhagen. All though they're are rare, they do pop up now and then. This one you will find on the corner of Hardenbergvej og Vigerslevvej.

Today was most probably my last out door sketching this year - It was freezing cold. So cold the ink in my pen acted strange and the watercolours behaved like they where freezing too. The hairs on my brush was bend and my toes has turned to icicles, it was just a really cold day. But a very nice girl came to rescue me with a steaming hot cup of tea. What a great thing to do. It was my own choice to sit in the cold, but she just decided to make my day a bit warmer.  - Mange tak, du reddet tegningen. 

Smallegade

This is a sketchs from Smallegade. Apart from this, you'll find the best sushi restaurant in Copenhagen (Sanshin Sushi), some very nice cafées, some cool pubs and a couple of antique shops - and most probably a lot more that I haven't paid any attention to- oh yeah, a and two ice cream shops right next to each other. And a cyclist who obviously haven't noticed that she has parked her bike right in front of a door

View over Copenhagen

A cold and windy sunday sketch with my good friend René. The sketch is drawn from the view point at Frederiksberg Castle, looking over Vesterbro.