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Street-sketches 8July-2010

Jul 082010

Nice sunny day here in Denmark and great to get outside again…

Managed to finish my work early today (illustrations) so I had a couple of hours on the local square sketching people, something I have been wanting to do for a long time.

Here are a couple of today’s street-sketches:

drawing of three persons from a Copenhagen square

People walking by, brush, ink and watercolor

Watercolor sketch of a woman passing by

Woman sitting on a bench, watercolor

Sketch of a woman standing, crossed legs

Ink and watercolor, woman in Copenhagen, Denmark

Hope to get out more sketching this summer, great to practice outside

dayhike to amager 2Marts2010

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Mar 032010

Day hike out of central Copenhagen 2. Marts 2010

Break and Watercolors in the snow

Nice and sunny day today, managed to walk a few hours (around 18 km. ) Solo walking in a very nice winter scenery, even though spring is getting closer and temperatures crawling up above freezing.

Here is a boot and my watercolors as I sat down to take a break

Sketching in the snow

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Feb 042010

Yesterday (3 February 2010) I was out in the snow, sketching with my Moleskine book. Even though it was freezing cold I still managed to get a few sketches down before the water froze on the paper.
I was out there for around 5 hours, doing a few sketches and this little video of my walk:

My Moleskine book in the snow

Sketching snow tracks in the snow

Here are some of the sketches from the walk (approx. 5 hours )

Sketch of a tree

sled riding kids

As I was working I started getting the small ice crystals in the paint, as it can be seen here (vague)

I did a few more:

Woman with her dog

Finally I did this experiment, sketching a guy that passed by me, fast in watercolors to work with the way they froze: (Click on the image to see it large size)

Guy that passed by me, watercolors

Good day out sketching, even though the temperature was around 1-5 degrees Celsius
I especially like the change when the water is not drying up, but freezing – even though it gives a bit of trouble when the papers are put on top of each other (as can be seen in the last one)

Zoo sketches

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Jan 222010

Today (22 January 2010) I decided to try out sketching in the zoo, haven’t done that for ages… or at least weeks

First few sketches I did standing in the cold wind, had a bit problems as the water froze on the paper, without drying, and mixing colors were hard as it all became ice faster than I could put the layers on the paper.

But good part was that the structure, made by the freezing water on the paper – did ad a bit of texture:

Copenhagen Zoo, Moleskine sketchbook, Frozen watercolors and ink

Did a few more sketches outside, that was total disasters, before I went inside and visited the Chimpanzees :

Sketches of Chimps

And a Kameleon – very strange creature…

Kameleon, Moleskine sketch, Watercolor and Ink - Copenhagen zoo

Last I went on to the new Foster Elephant House and sketched the elephants there:

Fast ink sketch - Moleskine

And the last sketch today:

Elephant sketch, Moleskine, Copenhagen Zoo

That was my sketches today, I am still working on the techniques, and combining and practicing the balance between walking and sketching

Winter sketches, Christiania Denmark

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Jan 212010

Today (21 January 2010) I did a walk with my Moleskine sketchbook and watercolors, to the old Hippie world of Christiania, where the Hippies still try to live according to the dreams they agreed on, almost 40 years ago.

Here are my watercolor sketches from today:

Winter in Christiania, Hippie shop selling Merchandise

Small hippie shop in Christiania - Copenhagen

By mistake I burned the sketch in the edge, when I tried to dry it on one of the open fires they have on the street

Two guys talking between a couple of large wood sculptures

It was freezing cold, lots of snow on the ground and my hands getting numb, so decided to go inside on a small cafe called “the moon-fisher” for a glas of tea.

The Hippie cafe "moon fisher" at Christiania (Moleskine sketch)

Back outside, I was heading down to the water, starting to sketch the amazing houses at Christiania

Christiania house between the old Copenhagen defense earth walls

Getting all the way down to the water, it was frozen and brave parents where trying to clear the snow from the lake to make a small ice skating area for the kids, while the low winter sun where disapearing behind the city (last watercolor sketch)

Kids ice skating in front of the Christiania houses down to the lake

It have been a cold day, today, but great to be outside and start to experimenting with combining walking with watercolor sketching in my Moleskine sketchbook… again

sketches 20January 2010

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Jan 202010

Black and White Sketches of stuffed birds

Did a few more sketches today in the Zoological museum in Copenhagen.

The Zoological Museum is very quiet in the afternoon, after all the school kids have left. And I almost had the whole place to myself, with whales, snakes, turtles, dinosaurs and ice bears all around. Great place for sketching animals when it is snowing and freezing cold outside, like today.

I used most of the afternoon studying the birds, surrounded by stuffed birds from all over the world, and with a few monitors playing short David Attenborough films for the birds.

I did around 10 sketches with ink, water and brushes.

Here are a couple of them:

a few sketches of birds

I really like owls and when I was young we actually had one of them living in our barn, and I can still remember how fascinating it was that the owl in there could fly right over my head, without making any sound and also when it turned its head all around and stir at me in the twilight with those big eyes.

Sketches of owls

Wonder where I will be sketching tomorrow…

Global warming - illustrations from Copenhagen

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Dec 172009

Right now it is the day before the big final day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009, where I am living and have been doing my illustrations for the last few years.

It is freezing cold outside, with snow and strong winds, and I have been working all day on my collection of free environmental illustrations.

The idea is to put together an collection of drawings that visualize some of the perspectives, thoughts and challenges we face.

here are a few examples of illustrations from the collection:

Animals gathering around the ark

Experts in book-towers

Asking for yet another planet

The whole collection can be seen and downloaded from:

Flickr (yahoo image site, with downloads, prints and links)

Google Picassa (Googles image site, with all the same options)

The whole collection is also on my own site here:

http://hikingartist.com/art/FreeEcoillustrations_g85.html

Best hopes from

Frits Ahlefeldt
Copenhagen – Denmark
HikingArtist.com

Hiking-amager-sketches

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Oct 282009

Seven rough sketches from my notebook

Today I went out to the airport with my daypack and watercolors to get a bit of practice.

First I hang out a bit at the Starbrucks cafe, an airport is a special place and I kind of enjoy watching people arrive and leave for far away destinations.

I was out to check my gear and do a few sketches, and prepare for longer hikes. So it was just a short hike, to a small fishing village close by, called Dragoer.

With me I had my Moleskine sketchbook and my watercolors, here are the sketches before the rain made me find shelter in a small cafe’ with warm applepie and good tea. Here are the rough sketches from today:

Started out from the Copenhagen Airport

Worked with ink, experimenting with using watercolors with the ink.

Walking along the fence

The beginning was filled with impressions from the large scale of the planes and a lot of noise.

The Oresund Bridge

Ate lunch looking out at the huge bridge, quiet autumn weather, looked like rain, but still dry

Fishing village in front of me

The ferries to Sweden used to leave from out there, but now the bridge is there the ferries have gone

Following a small path along the water

The houses along the water was both beautiful and old, I really liked the next one:

Strange narrow house overlooking the coastline

Went back to pure watercolors for this one, think that is still my favorite way to work…

About this time it started to rain and I went into the village and waited for the paper to dry on a small cafe.

Street in the village

I did the last sketch, when I found a place where I was almost out of the rain.

The sketches today was a bit different as I used more ink than I normally do, nice to get back out and get back to the notebooks

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Street-sketches 8July-2010

dayhike to amager 2Marts2010

Sketching in the snow

Zoo sketches

Winter sketches, Christiania Denmark

sketches 20January 2010

Black and White Sketches of stuffed birds

Global warming - illustrations from Copenhagen

Hiking-amager-sketches

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Black and White Sketches of stuffed birds

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