Peeking out the little door viewer in our apartment door, this is what I see – a Stockholm staircase from the forties. A bit gloomy right now, since it´s dark outside.

My smaller sketchbook didn´t quite reach all the way through December, I finished it with yesterday´s drawing, so I´m continuing in the large book.

Approx. 18,5 x 18,5 cm, Namiki-Falcon with Platinum Carbon ink on Arches Satinée 300 g watercolour paper.

Day one of the Rendez vous ended outside a bar next to the cathedral (everything else was closing), where Miguel Herranz, I, Lapin and Gérard Michel talked about sketchbooks, drawing techniques, colours, and drawing habits, with a group of young students from Colégio de Santa Doroteia in Lisbon. They are in Clermont-Ferrand with their teacher Mario Linhares (whom I met during the Lisbon symposium this summer) and his colleagues.

I was really impressed by these students – I took this photo at 00.25, and they were freezing at the end, but still asking questions, being genuinelly interested… Wow.

I managed to squeeze in a few portraits too, during the evening. I am determined that some day I will be able to draw perfect portraits, and fast, so I’d better start practicing. These took forever.

I’m having a crazy first day at the Rendez vous du Carnet de Voyage. The place is crowded with people, and today is the day when the school kids visit, and they all want a drawing done in their school books. It’s a rather odd feeling to draw with ten kids leaning over you. They run around collecting drawings from all the ‘carnettistes’. And my brain is ready to explode from trying to speak French with children… But they are very understanding, I ask them to speak slowly, and they really make an effort to.

I’ve had lots and lots of other people too at my stand, asking about my art, about Sweden and Stockholm, about my drawing tools. I’ve had so many interesting conversations, mostly in Frenglish.

As a bonus, my stand is right next to Mattias Adolfsson’s, so I finally get to meet one of my favorite illustrators. : )

The Rendez vous du Carnet de Voyage is the most well-organized event I have ever been to – and it hasn’t even started yet!

Today I have been brought by car to (and from, in the evening) Vic-le-Comte, where I was to set up my exhibition of watercolours. I have had help all day to hang my paintings, print signs and price lists, and had a fantastic lunch mid-day. In the evening, the opening of the exhibition was also taken care of with drinks and speeches, people had been invited, the Mayor of Vic-le-Comte came by…

It has been a fantastic day, and I am so grateful for all the efforts made to make it work! A huge Thank you and lots of love to all who helped out, especially Pauline for organizing things in Vic, and Estelle for just knowing what to help me with all the time, even though I “don’t speak French” and you “don’t speak English”! : )

For all spelling mistakes and bad imagery in this little live blogging adventure, I blame the iPhone. I may accept some little responsibility for the fact that I only took photos way before the opening and when it was almost over. But you’d think a smartphone should be able to remind you somewhere in between, right?

I did the drawing while waiting for a flight to Paris. I lost track of time, as I often do while drawing, and realized when I was done that everyone was already standing in line boarding the plane. Drawing as meditation is probably good for you, but missing flights is not. It’s a fine line…

(The image editing is done on the iPhone – not quite like a high quality scanner and Photoshop on a widescreen, but it will have to do for now.)

Ah, getting back to things – I didn´t stop drawing, life just got so busy there for a while that I didn´t find time to scan and write in peace and quiet. Which means I have some catching up to do here!

I went drawing with Charlotte some weeks ago, at Beckholmen here in Stockholm. Beckholmen (which roughly translated means ‘Pitch islet’) is one of those odd places in this town that I really love. It´s a tiny islet in the central city, just off Djurgården – near the stream of visitors to Gröna Lund´s amusement park and Skansen outdoor museum, but with quite a different atmosphere.

Some hundred years ago, this was a place for boiling pitch – hence the name. The little island was perfect for this inflammable business, just distant enough from the rest of the city. Since the mid 19th century, the islet is a shipyard, with three dry docks that are still in use. It is also part of the Royal National City Park, which is kind of an odd combination.

You never get the feeling of heavy industry here, even though quite a few ships dock here for maintenance. The buildings are old, some from the 17th century, and you reach the islet via a narrow wooden bridge. The bridge alone is enough to make me happy – no traffic jams here, the island is too small and the bridge too fragile for that.

Unfortunately for our drawing session, a large part of Beckholmen is fenced in right now. The city is clearing out toxins in the soil. I guess a few hundred years of pitch, tar and naval industry didn´t pass without leaving marks…

Top drawing: 17 x 17,5 cm, bottom drawing: 21 x 17,5 cm. Both: Namiki-Falcon with Platinum Carbon ink and watercolours on Arches Satinée 300 g watercolour paper.

Having some fun on a rainy day recently.

17 x 12 cm, Snowman ink pen in Muji Passport Notebook.

One of the sheds on the island. For the pattern to the right, I used some kind of ventilation (?) grid that I found in a junk pile in the shed.

20 x 19,5 cm, watercolours on Fabriano Artistico 300 gsm rough grain watercolour paper.

Ukuleles are totally un-threatening, gentle, fun, a little goofy – and STILL completely possible to play serious music on. It´s small, fits into almost any bag. Weighs nothing. Costs almost nothing. Easy to learn a few chords on to get started. In short – the perfect companion. Every human being should own one, it would make the world a softer place.

14 x 11 cm, pencil, Copic markers and black ink pen on bleedproof marker paper.

I´ve been playing around with these impossible but funny Copic markers for a bit. You know how markers are always impossible because they bleed through the paper? Well, get the right kind of paper and you´ll have good fun with them! I bought a pad of really smooth and bleedproof marker paper, and now I am learning some tricks with these fantastic pens.

For example: don´t draw black lines and then try to colour them in (as I almost always do with other techniques) – the markers will solve the black ink and everything will be a mess. Black lines go on as a last detail.
And: even if you don´t draw over the black pen, you can still make a mess – as in this drawing of a Swedish table classic (Bregott butter). I can´t really control these fellas, and I kind of like it. They keep surprising me.

15 x 11 cm, pencil, Copic markers and black pen on bleedproof marker paper.