Vacation sketches - Poland - Joan Breckwoldt

After a break from blogging this summer, I’m back with some sketches. We just returned from our family vacation to Europe. Somehow I got the idea to bring along a sketch book, pencil and pen with me.

We started our vacation in Berlin, Germany. We visited a wonderful art museum (of course!) which is always inspiring, especially the Impressionists for me. We visited the Pergamon Museum which houses one of the gates of Babylon, anytime I can see and touch something that I have read about in the Bible it’s awesome! We learned a lot about the Berlin Wall. Our hotel was build in space the wall occupied before 1989. Our hotel was in former West Berlin and the little bakery down the street where we got our croissants for breakfast was in former East Berlin. Almost all of the actual wall has been torn down, there is a mile long peice of it that we walked along and in the rest of the city the former East Berlin/West Berlin border is marked by a row of bricks in the cement with plaques saying “Berlin Wall”. We also ate lots of hearty German food!

Even though I faithfully carried my sketch pad and pens with me this whole time, I didn’t take it out to sketch once.

After four days in the big city of Berlin we decided to rent a car and drive north to the sea. The closest sea was the Baltic Sea so we drove 2 hours to the beautiful seaside town of Heringsdorf which is on an island. One morning we rented bicycles and rode 7 km to cross the border into Poland along a bike path between the dunes and the woods that fill most of the island. We had a wonderful and cheap lunch in the town of Swinemunde in Poland (deep fried fish but I was unable to understand what kind of fish), then we rode a little further and found a path down to the beach right next to a ship channel. We watched a huge ocean liner go by. The kids and my husband wanted to walk a bit down the trail along the beach so I stayed with the four bikes while they explored. I looked across the channel and that’s when I got inspired to sketch! It’s not even the most beautiful view, but something told me now was as good a time as any. So, standing the whole time, I pulled out my sketch book and pens and hurriedly sketched what was in front of me. I didn’t even think, I just sketched. It was wonderful and after one sketch I was hooked! My family came back in about 10-12 minutes and we were back on our bikes heading back to Germany.

That was a wonderful day, the air was filled with thousands of ladybugs, so many that they would stick to our shirts, our hair . . . and you had to keep your mouth shut while biking. We rode past a couple of outdoor pavillions where small orchestras were playing to a crowd. We rode past outdoor markets, rose gardens, stopped to ride on a ferris wheel and then returned our bikes to the rental place.

I wanted to spend some time on the beach so we rented a Strandkorb which means “beach basket”. It’s a seat for two with a back that reclines and a top and two sides for protection from the sun and most likely wind, though we didn’t have that problem in July. I sat in the Strandkorb and sketched what I saw. The first thing I saw was the pier with a restaurant at the end where we had desert the night before. (Well, not the first thing, but I’ll get to that in a minute.)

Having sketched the only stationery thing in sight, I started to sketch people. This particular woman cooperated nicely and stood still for a while, she was chatting with her friend.

Here I am sitting in the Strandkorb sketching, thanks to my husband and his camera.

Okay, one of the things about closely observing people is that you might see more than you really want to, especially on a beach. I’m fine with children running around naked, though in Germany the children seem to be comfortable doing this just a few more years longer than you might see here in the US. I’m comfortable with topless bathers. We did live in Holland for two years so I’m used to that. But, when you get past about the age of . . . . 40 . . . please don’t change from your clothes into your bathing suit while standing in the middle of the beach unobstructed by anything (a two peice swimsuit for the woman and Speedos for the man in this particular case), go swimming, and then change again back into your clothes! Call me a prudish American, I just don’t want to see that!

Next we drove south past Berlin on to Dresden. What a beautiful and elegant city Dresden is! Here is one sketch from Dresden. More from Dresden tomorrow.