Nina Johansson

I tried to capture my brother this time, but I am not that great with portraits, so it doesn´t much look like him. Still, you have to start practicing some time, huh?

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

The second drawing in the December series. Drawing while mostly listening to a movie on tv.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

Back to drawing, after my adventure in France! A friend challenged me to do one drawing of an everyday subject each day in December. Who can say no to that? I´m in. This is the first, I´m just getting started on the second.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

The last day of the Rendez vous was as fantastic as the other two, with lots of visitors at my stand. I am amazed at the interest people showed in my sketchbooks, many thanks to all who stopped by to chat and flip through my books! I have had so many great conversations during these three days, and made a lot of new acquaintances with likeminded folks. Brought home lots of warm memories to Sweden!

And as the icing on the cake, two of my drawings made it into a spread about the Rendez vous in A/R magazine, a French travelling magazine. I´m especially glad they chose the image of the empty pool of Aspuddsbadet, which was sadly enough demolished in December 2009…

Day two was just as crowded as day one, only less school children, and more adults. My head is spinning from trying to conjugate French verbs all day.

At eleven, there was a debate, or a ’round table meeting’ (no table, though) with the Scandinavians, i.e. me, Ea Ejersbo and Mattias Adolfsson. We were interviewed by a journalist and answered questions from the audience. (To help us with the fascinating French language, there were also two interpreters there. I never spoke through an interpreter before, and I realized afterwards that I probably spoke more to her than the audience…)

I am amazed at how much interest people have here for travel journals and sketchbooks. I have had visitors at my stand all the time, non-stop. People have leafed through my sketchbooks and posed questions about technique, tools and drawing habits, and I have tried to answer as best I can in my horrible French.

The most frequently asked question is whether I have published something, if there is a book one can buy in the Rendezvous bookshop… Darn. I knew I should have made a book.

The dinner in the evening turned into a drawing party. Funny that photographing drawings with the iPhone in bad lighting always seems to produce a green tinge in the middle of the image…

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’m trying out what an iPhone can do for a blogger in Clermont-Ferrand. I don’t know yet if this will work, but here goes, anyway.

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.)

I have been busy busy busy lately, packing my sketchbooks and some paintings, getting ready to head off to Clermont-Ferrand in France for the Rendezvous du Carnet de Voyage! I feel honored to have been invited to the Rendezvous this year, and also to exhibit my paintings in Vic-le-Comte.

Otherwise I always go places with my dear M, but this travelling-on-my-own thing is becoming quite the habit this year – first the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Lisbon, and now this! If you are anywhere near the Rendezvous – come keep me company for a few minutes! I´ll be in the Scandinavian corner! : )