Vacation sketches – More Prague

Our hotel was on the grounds of the Brevnov Monastary, this is a sketch of the church, behind it are quarters for the monks and a building to the right has been made into a hotel. There is also a small restaurant in one of the buildings, and a large barn on the property. As I mentioned before, our hotel was about 15 minutes on a tram from the center of Prague, which made it a nice get away from the crowds. The Monastary also had a walled rose garden and a small orchard.

We usually got back to our hotel in the late afternoon after a day of sightseeing, we would have some quiet time in the hotel before going back out for dinner. On this day I used my quiet time to sit on a bench and sketch a view of the monastary. A monk even walked by! I sketched him very quickly on another sheet of paper, then used that as a reference to draw him onto my sketch. I wasn’t confident enough to attempt to draw him directly onto my sketch.

One of the fun things about being in Europe is talking to other travelers. While sitting on the bench a man approached me on his bike. Because I was sitting there sketching, he somehow thought I knew all about the monastary, in some official capacity I guess. He was the sweetest man, his shorts were hiked up to his ribs and he had a big crooked smile. He was from Croatia and spoke in broken English, but well enough so that we could communicate. Ha, he knew enough English to tell me my geography was bad during our conversation about Croatia! I kept an eye on his bike while he explored the church, he was traveling by bike and train and staying in hostels. Visiting with him is a good memory I have when I look at this sketch.

One evening I sat on the bed in our hotel room and sketched the room. The ceilings were tall, curved and vaulted. I guess the book I was reading got boring so I picked up my sketch pad!

Another day towards the end of our time in Prague we found ourselves in the Old Town Square. Again. We had gone there to tour one of the churches on the Square. My husband and the kids headed over to the church and I stayed behind to sketch. We had seen a lot that day, and done lots of walking, and I just didn’t want to see another “site”, I wanted a little quiet time. So I sat on a bench under some trees with a view of the square and chose this large entryway with wrought iron gates to sketch. It’s a good thing I didn’t choose anything too ambitious, it turns out the church was closed so my family was back in about 10 minutes. They sat patiently while I finished my sketch. We got a few raindrops and someone pulled out their umbrella so they’re in the sketch too.

Now that we were comfortable sitting on a bench overlooking the Square, we could appreciate the daily craziness of the Square. On this day there were a group of college age girls giving away free hugs. They were colorful and hard to miss: striped socks, bright colors, and a sign that said “FREE HUGS”. My daughter asked me to sketch some of them so I tried. Did I mention they were very active? I also sketched a couple of other people standing around the Square.

This was our last day in Prague, tomorrow we begin the journey back to Houston. More sketches too.