

Berlin Looking South - It's Time for Fine Liners
The day has arrived: I can roll out the big sheet of transparent paper, get the fine liner pens out, 0.5mm for most of the drawing, 0.3mm for finer details and 0.7mm for some heavier lines and dotting of trees, grass and sand. This can only mean one : I can start the final and definitive version of my drawing. Every single line, every single dash, every single window and every single dot I will draw it one more time, last little refinements possible and then I can start the d


Berlin Looking South - Nearly There
Back at the studio. The preliminary felt pen drawings are near enough ready and soon I can start the final fine liner pen version – yepee! Some elements need a bit more tweaking e.g. the New Synagogue in the foreground. Everyone who knows the city would recognize it because of the dome, some characteristic features and the location however, I’m not entirely happy, the shape makes it clearly a dome, of course, but it isn’t really this specific one yet. Cupolas are something v


Berlin Looking South - It's Not All About Buildings
After a little long weekend break to discover the beautiful city of Bath and Salisbury’s magnificent and grant cathedral I am back in my studio. Now it’s the Tiergarten’s turn, Berlin’s lush and green central park well placed between the city centres of former East and West Berlin. Naturally a park doesn’t have as much little architectural detail as the adjacent city quarters but I don’t want to make it just a uniform green sea where a closed roof of trees just hides any stru


Berlin Looking South - Jumping the Wall
I am moving further west towards the former no man’s land along the wall between east and west. As one might expect a lot of building work has been done in this void right in the middle of the city. Potsdamer Platz, prewar Berlin’s Piccadilly Circus and then cut right through by the wall came back to life. The area is most recognizable by the tent like roof structure of the Sony Centre and several high-rise buildings. Not far, on the way to Brandenburg Gate are the cubes of t