Posts By Alex Zonis

Nina, Captain Olof and Albert Nobel

This Stockholm adventure was turning out pretty awesome, not withstanding a hotel room the size of a matchbox. But it reached a new height on August 19 when I met with Nina Johansson to sketch in Gamla Stan – the Old Town.

Sketching with Nina in Skeppar Olofs Gränd 

This is Nina in the sketch! We found this little passageway where we could reach the opposite walls if we extended our arms to the sides. We hoped we would not be disturbed by hordes of tourists. We were wrong. Apparently this was a very important alley and FOUR tours traipsed over us in half an hour we spent there. They were VERY excited to find us there and took numerous photos of us. Two of the tours were English speaking, one Russian, and one – unfamiliar language.

One of the tour guides shared that she lives here in Gamla Stan. The basement of her building is very old indeed – 12th century. Her actual building is much more modern – 1600’s. Just imagine! From another tour guide I learned that this alley – Skeppar Olofs – was already built in 1587, that’s the first known mention of it in the records. It was named after captain Olof who was an important figure in Swedish Navy.

Swedish Academy and Nobel Museum in Stockholm

The reason Nina and I only had a half an hour in Skeppar Olofs Grand was that we were meeting Ed Harker at Stortorget – the Big Square. Ed is a sketcher from Bath, England. It turned to be a truly international sketch-meet. We had a great time sitting in a cafe and sketching Stortorget. My view was Swedish Academy and Nobel Museum – the very place where they decide the Nobel prizes every year since 1901.

Sketching with Ed and Nina in The Old Town, Stockholm

An American in Stockholm – continued

Stockholm is situated on 14 islands. It really is a Northern Venice. Gamla Stan, which means The Old Town, is located on the island of Stadsholmen. It is a mind blowing place.

Stockholm is one of the very few European cities that did not get bombed into oblivion during WWII. The old buildings and stone paved streets are still there, intact for centuries, they can take you back in time like a time machine. Many date back to 1600’s, with some going as far back as 12th century.

I sketched this sitting in a cafe on the intersection of three streets, Norra Bankogrand is the street in the sketch. It leads to the piers, there between the buildings, and Baltic sea.

Stockholm has a different palette than any other city I’ve been to. It is all painted in natural earth colors. I heard this is a city ordinance of some sort. So I found myself using a lot of yellow ochre, sienna and umber. And my favorite – Palette Gray.

I was sitting in this cafe with my coffee and my sketchbook, working on my drawing, and somehow this made people think that I was local. I was asked directions, lol. In one case a family talking to me happened to be from Chicago, and we had a little laugh about it. Amazingly, I did know – this once – how to get where they wanted to go.

 

An American in Stockholm

I have just come back! Stockholm is amazing!

But let me start from the beginning. About a year ago The Husband was invited to present at Stockholm University. The topic – Empathy – was his specialty, and of course he said yes. I too said “But of course!” meaning that I was going too, and surprised him only a little.

Now, a year later, we are just back having spent 11 days in Stockholm. And what a tour that was! I will try to tell the story with my sketches.

SAS airline surprised us by being unusually on time! In the last 10 years I don’t remember anything starting or ending at the promised time where air travel was concerned! The second surprise was that the food was almost edible. Still, there were some peculiarities – strange raggedy curtains between classes (we of course flew the “chopped liver” class.)

This is Södertörn högskola – South Stockholm University – where The Husband was a keynote speaker. This giant amazing bazalt rock is the centerpiece of the campus. The conference “What is Empathy and what do we need it for?” was multidisciplinary, which means that, while it was overrun by philosophers, there were also psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, people with the whole alphabet after their names and one artist.

The title of my husband’s talk was “A Heideggerian Approach to Empathy: Befindlichkeit is not Enough.” You can read it again, I’ll wait. But it would not make any more sense than the first time. The talk however was amusing and very entertaining, he made me laugh. I skipped the rest of the presentations (they spent three days convincing each other that empathy is important and we ought to have more of it.) Instead I went sketching, which was the whole point of going to Stockholm.

I have more sketches, but as I am learning any sketching expedition comes with after the show part: sketches have to be tagged, dated, locations cleared, text added where needed, pages cleaned, color corrected or added. Then all need to be scanned and filed. So I will be showing more sketches of Stockholm in subsequent posts until I run out sketches or out of patience, whichever comes first.

O Sole Mio

O Sole Mio

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

Remember how it sounded when Pavarotti sang it? It is hard to come up with something sounding sweeter than that. And of course pear shapes invoke certain associations. Anyway, pears are so easy to anthropomorphize… they are so much like us. I have no trouble imagining them serenading each other or singing a duet.

Of course, painting a music score is a lot less sweet. It’s pretty much a pain in … wherever. In oil while keeping perspective… I hope I did it correctly. If you can read music and see a mistake – don’t tell me, I don’t want to know!

Waiting for Adam

Waiting for Adam

8″ x 10″ (20 x 25 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

Just apples to try a different technique. And a tongue in a cheek joke as an afterthought. Coming up with a title was harder than painting it. As sure as god made little apples… an apple a day… All of this was so trite that I was very tempted to title this Untitled. Every self respecting artist has something called Untitled. But then my husband came up with A Garden of Eve, and I loved it, and of course took it a step further.

Unwrapping

Unwrapping

8″ x 8″ (20 x 20 cm) oil on gessobord panel

SOLD

It’s been almost three months since my last oil painting. There are several reasons why. I’ve been away, and painting not in my own studio is slow somehow. I’ve been organizing the Chicago chapter of Urban Sketchers, and that took time and effort. But the real reason it took this long is that my subject was so damn hard! I can’t believe I actually got it to the end! It would be a while before I paint crumpled paper again :).

Living on the Edge

It really is not as exciting as it sounds. Nice – yes, in summer. Interesting – sometimes. Exciting – not really.

I live in Edgewater, a neighborhood of Chicago. Our Chamber of Commerce came out with this brilliant line, and now you can see it on posters and flags everywhere. I see it all the time when I am out sketching. It gave me an idea of series of sketches – Living on the Edge. Here are a few:

.

Out of the Starbucks window, looking at the historic buildings on Bryn Mawr & Winthrop

.

..

The Secret Garden. In the gardens of the Pink Building. I live in the neighborhood for 18 years and have never been inside these gardens until last week. You have to know a resident to take you in.

.

The Church of Atonement, at the side entrance. A beautiful old church a block away from my house. Even has a table there to spread your sketchbook, pens and palette – heaven, really.

_

Another historic building – art deco this time – on Bryn Mawr and Winthrop, different corner. Also sketched out of Starbucks, ______________________it was too cold to be ______________________outside.

.

These are all done on location, Urban Sketchers style, as quickly as I can draw. Which is not very fast at all – one to one-and-a-half hours each.

Hope to show you more of my Chicago as I sketch it.

Waterworks show

With my two portraits at Waterworks show

14th Annual Waterworks show opened yesterday in August House gallery in Chicago. The turn out was fantastic! People were standing shoulder to shoulder with barely any room to get to paintings. The weather seemed to be in line with the theme of the show as water was coming down from the sky with great enthusiasm.

I showed two of my watercolor portraits: Meyr and Odelia, and got great feedback on them from guests and participating artists. It feels very good, especially considering that overall level of work at the show was very high.

Urban Sketchers Chicago


Urban Sketchers Chicago is a new sketch group and a new chapter of the Worldwide Urban Sketchers movement. Urban Sketchers is a network of artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel to. The mission is to “Show the World, One Drawing at a Time.” Until now Chicago did not have an Urban Sketchers group. For two years I waited – sketched by myself – and waited some more for someone to start the Chicago group so I could join it. Tired of waiting I am starting it myself.

Urban Sketchers Chicago will have its first “Let’s sketch Chicago” meet on Sunday, April 29, in downtown Chicago. We will meet at a starting point – the Art Institute – and sketch, either together or individually, then meet up at an end point to look at each other’s sketchbooks. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on!

Our sketchmeets and sketchcrawls are free and open to everyone, all ages and abilities. We hope to make our meets a regular occurrence, so for the date and location of the next sketchcrawl, find us on Facebook – Urban Sketchers Chicago Facebook group.

Happy sketching!

Great thank-you and appreciation goes to

Marina Grechanik of Urban Sketchers Israel

Barbara Weeks, a long time Urban Sketcher from Chicago, and

LuEllen Joy Giera, a facilitator of Her Group for WomanMade Gallery

for the support and help they gave me while I was working to make this happen.

Rover and Bessie

Rover and Bessie - oil on gessobord - 6"x6"

Remember Beanie Babies?

Oh, the 90’s… Shelly was perhaps in the first grade when Beanie Babies became all the rage. We succumbed – they were so cute. Irresistible, really. And their names were so clever, like Speedy – the turtle :). We collected them for several years, and now we have a box full. A few have peanut butter or other food smears on them, some are dirty from being loved too much, but all are still perfect props, wonderfully colorful and posable. Here, for you, are Rover the dachshund and Bessie the cow – a dear memory of my daughter being little.

In other news:

I will be going on my yearly trip to Israel to be with my parents. I am leaving in 2 days and will be staying there for a month, back in April. So, if I don’t have a good way to scan/photograph images while on the trip – there will be no posts until I return. Or perhaps technology will oblige, and I will post sketches and paintings. I do plan to paint, am bringing two panels with just prime and drawings on them. And I plan to sketch a lot. In fact, I connected with Urban Sketchers Israel and hope to do a sketchcrawl with them if logistics cooperate.

Shalom, darlings! 😀