Hamburg Rathaus

The Hamburg Rathaus (City Hall)is an imposing building with lots of windows and ornamentation and a green copper roof. There is a cafe right opposite with a wonderful view over the town square to the Rathaus. I sat on a high stool there looking out the window to draw this.

 

Then I thought it might look good as an etching as well, so I took a prepared zinc plate to the coffee shop and drew onto that.

 

After a first acid bath the initial etching looked like this.

then I worked on it some more and dunked it in the acid bath again to bring out the highlights.
More ink/watercolour sketches of Hamburg Rathaus.

Hamburg: Water City

Hamburg, like Venice, is built on water. The Town Hall sits on one of the tributaries that run from the Alster Lake to the Elbe River.
Boat tours take tourist on trips around the Alster lake in the middle of the city. (Note the plastic bag on the bike seat - it was a wet day.)
I read somewhere that there are more bridges in Hamburg than Venice
and I can believe it.