Berlin

We arrived in Berlin bang on the start of Spring. Suddenly it was warm enough to leave off the down jacket and bask in the sunshine on the edge of the canals, along with everyone else emerging from hibernation. It made for some great afternoons enjoying a beverage and drawing on the riverbank. Berlin has to be my favourite city in the world (sorry Sydney). Being a cheap place to live it attracts lots of artists and has a vibrant, yet down to earth feel about it.

I enjoyed a bizarre life drawing session here with Johannes Leak – check out the costume.

More Museums. Lovis Corinth, with his vigorous brushwork was a real favourite. I also enjoyed Max Leibermann and Adolph von Menzel. Munch’s paintings, eerie and dream-like, made me want to paint larger pictures using simple, flat colours with large brush strokes. It’s hard for me to “go bigger” without getting caught up in the details – but Munch could do this so well. I think going big has a lot to do with confidence.

Prague

The weather was warm and there was no snow when we arrived in Prague. What a relief. I really dug the gargoyles and the over the top gothic architecture.

The Mucha Museum was a definite highlight. I love the hard-outline he uses in drawing the figure, and the very minimal use of subtle tone. He would have done this for printing efficiency and managed to make it work so well.

Vienna

Vienna must be the Museum capital of the world. Cold again, but luckily I spent all my time indoors. Three words: Egon Scheile - Phenomenal. There was an exhibition of his drawings and watercolours at the Leopold Museum. He is the man. And I can’t believe he did all this work before he died at 28. Now I want to draw like him.

And then Klimt – so pretty and delicate, and still phenomenal. He makes it all look far too easy. I was inspired by his simple and efficient drawing, which were made possible only after so many years of academic training. His crazy, over the top and opulent designs, full of gold-leaf but also subtlety, make me want to experiment more.

I suppose the drawings I do from life in my sketch book, collecting ideas for paintings, are partly influenced by Klimt and Sheile. These drawings are often put down quickly, as I see a scene or pose occurring naturally around me. Using pen, ink and brush, I work really hard at trying to use minimal lines on the page to show maximum form, action and gesture. Seeing Klimt and Sheile’s work is also pushing me to improve my sense of design.

Budapest

From Russia to Budapest – warm weather, no snow, no, I spoke too soon, snow the next day. We rented a cheap apartment for two weeks, which was a chance for me to work on some of my ideas for paintings from the past couple of months. I worked on compositional and colour studies in ink and gouache.

Seeing a great impressionist show of paintings from the Pushkin Museum Moscow was a highlight. Picasso’s painting Arlikin and Friend really blew me away. I wish I knew his secret to making his simplistic drawing and counter-intuitive use of colour, like blue and green in the flesh, work so well. And so different to Ilya Repin’s realist paintings, which are so lifelike that they look like they could breathe. The struggle continues – in which direction should I go?

Russia

Finally we got our replacement Russian visas and arrived in St Petersburg only two weeks later than planned. Snowstorms, cold, beautiful white everywhere. The biggest surprise: people actually wear big fur hats, and I was jealous – my ears were freezing.

It was so good to finally see Ilya Repins in the flesh at the Russian Museum. The scale and efficiency of Repin’s work is amazing.

Walking ice and snow filled streets was challenging on its own, never mind the threat of deadly icicles from above. Hiding in cafes to warm up was my only chance to do any drawing, my hands and ink would freeze in the -25C outside.

Then to Moscow. The scale of the place was overwhelming – the bridges, the buildings, the churches, the Red Square, everything was ginormous. Negotiating the Russian metro and street signs was a reality check. I remember seeing a “for sale” sign at an apartment complex, which used the communist red and yellow stars to catch your attention: it summed up Russia’s bizarre history of communism and now consumerism.