The Drawing Academy - Summer Course in Classical Drawing Pt. 1

In the beginning of July I went on a trip to the North of Jutland and took a week-long course in classical drawing, hosted by The Animation Workshop/The Drawing Academy, which is a school/university for mainly animators. It was a great decision to do that, I learned a TON, met a lot of inspiring and ambitious people and just had an awesome time in general... Every day there were 6 hours teaching/drawing (mostly life drawing/"Croquis" as the Danes say, with poses between 10 seconds to around 2 1/2 hours). When I first got there I was pretty bummed out about my own abilities, seeing how damn awesome everyone around me was at drawing :-), but I chose to use that feeling to get even more encouraged/eager and it worked! Ha! I think I made a lot of progress in those 7 days, not just in drawing, but also in my general attitude and in sorting out my life goals and "stuff"...
I definitely want to keep practising (a lot more than I do - which is basically nothing - argh!) and learn to draw better... It's only the first step on a looong way I took here - but I'm very glad I took it!!
Here are some of the long-time studies, I'll post some sketches and many photos I took another time.
The drawings are in chronological order. We did almost every day one, but the very first ones are just too shitty to share, hehe (anyway I'll keep them for myself to remind me where I started and how fast it can go if I just keep practising enough).
I THINK I can see a little progress along the way, thanks to the many helpful comments and people around.

Our models were called Asger and Emilie and were really sweet people and rad artists themselves...

P.s.: The paper's way too big for my scanner :-(

spring

random pictures that I like from some time ago:

germany and easter with my family

spring in copenhagen/louisiana museum

a view from my desk at work

camel balls (that i should have bought) and click festival in helsingør (that was amazing - saw the gaslamp killer and dean blunt, aaaah!!)

Highlights of the week

I'm a sucker for lists!

Highlights of my week (12) in no particular order:

• Having a German guest in the house who brought loads of presents - mostly vegetarian sausages (the currency we prefer to work with here), and 3 bottles of beloved Club Mate!- cooked amazing meals for us and was overall a very pleasant company
• Getting to know about Wesley Willis, thanks to Timo. I'm impressed by his person and drawings in particular, but also his music didn't escape my head for several days. You can watch a nice documentary on him here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YBgZErdvyU
• Seing a !mindblowing! show at a really beautiful venue, Copenhagen's Jazzhouse: Papir (one of my Danish favourites, always a pleasure to see them play) and Oneida, which was both fun and mesmerizing
• Giving a friend a haircut because he thinks I'm good at it! What?! Yay!
• My first "Om" at Yoga class that actually felt like something (pretty awesome that is)
• Skipping presumably enjoyable appointments, simply to be able to spend more time with my boyfriend - so worth it.
• Making veggie, quite fancy Sushi for the first time and totally mastering the rolling process (just like thiiis) = huge feeling of success
• My workspace now has "Women's Tea", and no matter how ridiculous that name is! it tastes great and makes my workday just a little better, hehe.

pt. 3 - sommerferie - matala

after a more than lousy danish/german summer 2012, i welcomed the greek heat that almost made me collapse.

yingyangskin

view from our terrace!

little friend

matala: 1 unreal shopping/food/bathing/holidaying-town

warm, very salty water

it got dark really early every night, and the sun went down behind that mountain

quite exhausting everyday walk (or: climb) to the red beach (because the other one was quite crowded and not as beautiful)

worth it.

"wenn die sonne lacht, nimm blende acht"-test (erfolgreich.)

snorkeling was great! so many fishes!

for the people that were too lazy, or simply not able, to crawl over the rocks, there was a little boat coming by twice a day, getting you back into civilization.

best illustration of a mojito of all times. isn't it?

beach glass.

the crowded boring beach, but with loads of beach glass!

winter blues und fernweh

These days I'm dreaming of traveling and sunshine... I'm longing so much to "just get out of here", for a few weeks, preferably a few months, go and live somewhere else, meet new people and experience new things. But most of all I'm longing for having the time to really dig deep into the things I love doing and connecting with myself and those pleasures again. Ah, that would be nice and healthy.

I went through all of the pictures I took during an amazing and super varied summer vacation last year. Those 3 weeks felt a lot longer since there were so many different stops on the way: The dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, seeing friends and family at home, spending some seriously chilled out days in a summerhouse at the Baltic Sea, and to top it off - 10 days in Crete, in the most surreal and fantastic little ex-hippie-town Matala. I really enjoyed not having a "city-holiday" for once, where so much is about visiting sights, shopping, going out, seeing a lot of people. Although I love seing new, big cities and new people - it's always very inspiring and so much input - I rarely find myself coming back from those exhausting trips and feeling refreshed, balanced and relaxed.
So I really enjoyed those days, having new places, things and people in small doses, and still having enough time to read a lot, sleep, draw, enjoy the nature, some art, and each other's company.

Guess that's also why I'm craving for a months-long-trip somewhere, and the experience to "live" there.