‘DRINK & DRAW', or rather ‘TASTE & DRAW’

luxemburg riesling tasting

I am blessed with a wine loving husband, but not with delicate taste buds. So when we were invited to join a select club of wine tasters in Luxemburg, I agreed on the condition that I could sketch while tasting.

We meet once every six weeks or so. The host couple chooses a specific wine region, grape or label and every couple brings one bottle in a price range from 5 to 30 euro. It is a ‘horizontal’ and blind tasting, during which all the aspects of the wine are discussed and noted: appearance, aroma, in-mouth-sensations and aftertaste. At the end the one who brought the winning wine receives a little award.

aloxe-corton wine tasting, luxemburg...and the winner is: aloxe-corton premier cru 'les valozières' 2005

I love the terminology: leathery, tar, stewed prunes, chocolate, liquorice, roses, prunes, bramble fruits, earthy, smoky, wet wool, petrol... But I quickly lose track and then I start to observe and try to sketch my fellow tasters. I always spit the wine in a spittoon, but is true that some alcohol can loosen up the sketches!

south american chardonnay wine tasting

south american chardonnay wine tasting: taking notes

saint-joseph (rhone) wine tasting

alentejo white wine tasting: looking, tasting, thinking

alentejo white wine tasting: smelling, tasting and taking notes


Adding some colour to the wine!



malbec wine tasting, luxemburg: the winner is catena alta 2011





vacqueyras wine tasting, luxemburg, and the winner is: les halos de jupiter 2010

Once in a while the wine tasting club goes on a little wine trip to a famous wine region. Last weekend we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the club with a trip to the nearby Alsace wine region, where we visited some remarkable producers:

Bernard Weber tasting





Réné Boehler tasting



Here a link to our Piemonte trip in 2015.

And here  you can see the whole collection of my wine tasting sketches PLUS some useful information about lesser known wines, and even more useful, the winning wines...

A sunny, freezing afternoon at the Christmas Market

For the last years the Luxemburg Christmas Market has been the traditional meeting point for our December sketchcrawl. This year it was freezing with a bright blue sky. We were quite a big group this time - welcome to the newcomers!

Warmly dressed with gloves and hats we explored the different places of sketching interest: the colourful stalls at the Place d’Armes and the Place de la Consitiution, and the skating ring at the Place Guillaume. I tried to capture the clumsy movements of some inexperienced skaters:

A band of musicians dressed as Father Christmas braved the cold to keep us company:

When sketching became impossible due to frozen fingers and toes we went for a hot drink. Our favourite bar ‘Kaale Kaffi’ was too crowded for our group, but we went to a bar next door to warm up, take the' family photo', drink + draw, and enjoy the company of fellow-sketchers.

Carlo with a Norwegian patterned sweater

USK + LUCA at the Luxembourg Trammusee

It was a great session last Saterday afternoon at the Tram Museum of Luxembourg with a nice group of fellow sketchers.

November colours

For our November Sketchcrawl we met at the Notre Dame cemetery in Limpertsberg, Luxemburg.

With its beautifully carved tombstones and funerary sculptures it is a place of meditation and calm. And especially in November, after the visits of the families, the chrysanthemums, the autumn colours and the monuments make for an interesting painting palette.

We were happy to welcome two new members, Nico and Manon (our youngest urban sketcher).

We were lucky that it did not rain, but there was a cold wind and you could feel snow in the air even if it was only the beginning of November. But the November light was beautiful, so we were courageous and we sketched for about an hour in the cemetery.

We made the traditional ‘family photo’ of our sketchbooks:

With the cemetery as background it has a special melancholic ring to it:

Here are my own sketches - I focused on the ‘Angel of Grief’, a replica of the Rome sculpture by the American sculptor William Wetmore Story.

Afterwards we went for a hot drink in the Hitch on the Glacis. When our fingers and toes were warm again we could go on sketching in a drink&draw session!

Manon sketching

Maria Grazia

Nico

MANCHESTER: the Urban Sketchers Symposium 2016

This year I had the great opportunity to attend the 7th Symposium of the Urban Sketchers in Manchester.
What an experience! Imagine more than 500 participants from 44 countries from all over the world sketching together for 4 days. Arnaud and Zita were the two other participants from Luxemburg.

At the beginning I was a bit overwhelmed. Many people seemed to know each other from previous symposiums or from their own regional groups. The other half was sketching feverishly every free second - which had rather a paralysing effect on me.
Adding to my confusion was the chaotic and vibrant city of Manchester: old and new, 3-levelled city, rich and poor, highbrow and underbelly, graduation day and comiccon festival, harry potter and homeless people, road works everywhere...
But gradually I totally warmed up to the city and the Symposium and it turned out to be a fantastic experience. The warming-up as a matter of speaking, because every day the weather got a bit wetter and colder. I suggested a nice sunny and dry Greek island for the next symposium!

Workshops

I had been lucky to ‘catch’ a workshop pass, which allowed me to follow workshops, activities, demos and lectures. It was not easy to choose between the vast offer of so many great topics and teachers, but I am very happy with the choices I made. I selected some teachers whose work I really admire, or picked a theme that interested me or where I feel a lack of experience.

Marina Grechanik 

In her workshop “What & How: Creating your Story” Marina taught us that the process of making an exciting and communicative sketch is all about making decisions: focusing on one central idea, deciding on format and dynamics, choosing a specific tool. She guided us through this process with a range of quick and clear exercises, working towards a final sketch.

choosing a format

choosing a theme

LK Bing

No time to rest! The afternoon workshop of LK Bing, “Capturing Atmosphere Using Dramatic Lighting and Fast Spontaneity” did justice to its title: rain poured down on us and some unexpected spells of sunshine brought the right drama! With fast and firm movements LK Bing showed us not to be afraid of scratching, mixing and pouring the colours.

StephanieBower

The next morning it was time for some fine-tuning. My architectural knowledge is nihil and perspective scares me to death, which is why I choose a more ‘technical’ workshop, “Soaring Spaces”. In the impressive staircases of the neogothic City Hall of Manchester Stephanie taught us with infinite patience and gentleness the basics of drawing an arch and how to move our eyes from there upwards high into the sky. My sketch is a far cry from the subtle sketches I saw around me, but at least I got rid of my ‘cold feet’.

Daniel Green

Daniel’s “Reflecting on Water” was not a workshop but a demo in the beautiful area of Castlefield, along the world’s oldest industrial canal. It is quite inspiring and instructive to see how others work. On my way home I tried my own hand at the Canal reflections.

MarionRivolier

I have been admiring the work and the palette of Marion Rivolier for a long time. The quintessence of Marion’s workshop “Paint like nobody’s watching” was learning to play with warm and cool colours and, by doing so, to construct and ‘tame’ the space.

EmmaFitzgerald

Only some hours left before the end of the symposium! I certainly do not regret my choice of a last activity “Drawing a collection”, led by Emma with a gentle and attentive hand. The Manchester University Museum proved to be a rich subject matter for collecting the most unexpected items...

Fayum portraits 1st century AD

 

Time for the family photo

And goodbyes...

See you in Chicago next year!

P.S.  I left Manchester without seeing any football! The only football I saw was the table football at the pub Peveril Of The Peak, one of the drink&draw spots of this Symposium

August sketchcrawl on the Mosel river bank

No need for many words!

This picture says it all: a nice, sunny, calm, hart warming summer afternoon with the Luxembourg Urban Sketchers on the Mosel river bank.

The ‘Iris’ got a lot of attention and its skipper, in full admiration of Beliza’s sketch, got himself a nice Sunday present...

This is one of my own versions of the 'Iris', with a slight colour shift...

A well earned drink at the Rothaus afterwards - toasting with the newcomers, Sonja and Maria Grazia - welcome to our group!