Boppard

If you are on the Rhine near the Loreley and want to get across the river you take one of the ferries. This photo was taken on a ferry to Boppart which is in the background.
Boppard is pretty with lots of cafes on the foreshore.

and houses like this one. Note the matching cushions on the chair.

An attic in Weisel

This attic is in Ulla's house in the small town of Weisel, perched among the hills along the Rhine.

 

Some houses in the village date from 1770 and I would guess Ulla's house is at least 200 years old. It has crooked floors, narrow hand cut wooden stairs and a half timbered barn. It was a ruin when she bought it, but is now a real charmer. It is a pleasure to go up and down the handmade narrow staircase to the top floor attic bedrom.

 

View from the attic window.

Faces: a video

Conducting the cranes.

This is one of two etchings I made after visiting the Hafenstadt and seeing all the cranes working on the Elbphilharmonie. Shortly before I had been to the opera with Simone Young conducting.

Both etchings are on my website.

Hamburg yesterday

This is Hamburg, taken from the train that crosses the bridge between the inner Alster lake (in the photo) and the outer Alster. A cityscape dominated by water and church spires.

Black box

A lot of new apartments have been built in Hamburg's new district, the Hafenstadt (=Harbour City). It is a bit like Pyrmont in Sydney. Apartment dwellers will be able to walk to the new Philharmonie which is being built nearby. The 'black box' building with information about the Philharmonie(previous post) is quite ingenious. Outside there are a series of tubes jutting from the walls.

 

(Note the bike too ... it is the bike I bought off eBay.)
If you look down the tubes you see films of concerts.

 

Some of the tubes don't have picture in them, but instead sounds. There is piano ... or trumpet ... or violin.

The new Elbphilharmonie

The Speicherstadt on the Elbe River in Hamburg is the part of the city where traders used to store their wares.

 

The Speicherstadt is now called the Hafenstadt and still has traders but it is mostly office building and apartments.

 

This is where the new 'Elbphilharmonie' is being built. There is a little square building with information about the Elbphilharmonie near the building site.

 

You expect expect to find lots of posters and information inside, but instead when you go in you find there is just a staircase (and someone minding it). So up the staircase you go.

 

 

As you put your head through the opening you suddenly realise what it is all about. There surrounding you is the seating layout of the new building, complete with little figures. You suddenly feel as if you are in the new Elbphilharmonie.

 

Then you see a building worker outside the window ... life sized.

 

Jahresausstellung II

More from the end of year show at art school.

The sleeping couple .... a reference to John and Yoko?

A cupboard which looked as if it had just fallen to the floor, crumpling the base and breaking all the mirrors and glass inside.

I liked this one particularly. The gingerbread heart (very popular here at Christmas time says "How's your carrier looking colleague?" On the left side of the picture is an employment ad seeking a 'Successful Artist'.

This is not part of the art show (though it could have been). It is my lunch + cup of tea and the photo was taken in the basement canteen.

All schools and departments have public canteens which is one of the good things about this country. The quality food in uni canteens varies from good to inedible and unfortunately the art school food was in the latter category. Sausages and potato salad were one of the edible offerings. The coffee made up for the food though... it was the best coffee I found in Hamburg. So I often got a coffee, eyed the food and decided on a liquid lunch.

Jahresaustellung

The semester is over here and the end of year show. The day before the show students were very busy hammering and painting and putting their work of display. There appeared to be a great deal of last minute activity, but the next day all the mess has gone. The show included everything including a new version of a disabled bicycle (patented), little electronic gadgets that go 'pop', huge enormous apparatuses whose function I could not establish, a couple sleeping in a bed, paintings and drawings of every type, witty installations and lots of tea and coffee and orange juice bars. One student was having his coffee introduced intravenously.

Pictures from the Hamburg S Bahn: Video

The wonderful music on this little movie is a piece by Brahms called Feldeinsamkeit. It is freely (and legally) available for download online.

Old and roomy

Most of the corridors in the art school building are enormous, much wider and higher than the one covered with a web (previous post).
It is very difficult to get into the art school here, mostly I suspect due to lack of physical space. I look at these enormous corridors and think how many studios could be created with a retrofit.

Corridor web

A couple of months ago the second floor corridor at school was suddenly covered in a web ... along the walls, the roof and the floor. So it remains to this day.

Print press

This is the print press I am using. Goodness knows how long it has been standing in this room but I have become rather fond of it. When you work on a press like this one you don't need any other exercise machine.

Etchings: spring

This was the first etching I made when I started school here. It reflects the feeling I had wandering through the beech woods in April as the leaves opened.


Later I added an aquatint (the black) and watercolour (green).

Wuppertal

Wuppertal valley north of Cologne.

Kölner Dom

I went to Cologne yesterday and spent several hours in the Ludwig Museum. They have a wonderful collection of German expressionists and Picasso paintings as well as Dada, Pop art etc. I kept discovering new corridors of paintings I had missed.

Then I sat outside and sketched the Cologne Cathedral next door. How do you paint such a massive building as this is?

Pink roses

Roses, painted at the Uetersen Rosarium (under an umbrella in the rain) yesterday.

Wonderful Roses

Uetersen, on the outskirts of Hamburg is a thriving rose breeding center and the Uetersen Rosarium is a 'must-see' for rose enthusiasts. I took this photo of the rose Nostalgie at the Uetersen Rosarium yesterday.


A new book about the Rosarium and about Roses has just been released (in German with English summaries). It documents the history of the many roses bred in the area and is full of excellent photos ... like the one on the cover.

Co-author of the book Hanny Tantau, showing a group of garden lovers around the Rosarium. A spot of drizzly rain was not enough to stop the tour. Fortunately for the roses, the heavy rain that has brought southern Germany to a standstill has not reached the north.

Man and wife

Drawn in the train today on the way to the Hamburg art gallery. The trains were overflowing as it was a car-free day and trains travel was free.

Summer honeysuckle

It looks like a painting but it is a photo.