Amsterdam Love

Have I ever said here on this blog how much I love Amsterdam?
Welll... a LOT! I am a city girl - I love to be able to step out of the door into the city buzz, but also that I know to find quiet places of the city. It's a small city, so it's quite common to run into people, like you do in small villages. The other day, I went for  run and almost bumped into my brother and my sister-in-law. It gave me a smile for the rest of my run.

The neighbourhood I live in, has great architecture, so just going for a stroll or a sketch outside nearby is a real treat.
These are two recent sketches I made during lunch breaks. Away from the computer and the home office, into sunny Amsterdam.


And what about all the bicycles in Amsterdam? Many people say it's the hardest thing to draw. But really, it's just shapes and lines in the end. I find it very meditative to sit down and peer at all those tangled shapes of the bunches bicycles that are randomly parked in Amsterdam. For the drawing below, I sat on a bench next to a herring vendor and his stall. I started out drawing my own bike, since I was sure nobody would remove it, then drew more bicycles in the background - sometimes I had to be quick, as the owner of one of the bicycles would unlock a bike and leave. But, as the herring vendor said, as he sat down next to me on the bench to chat and have a look at my drawing: "You could go on forever, they keep parking more and more bikes in front of you". True. It was a lovely sketchtime, and if I wouldn't have hd to leave for an appointment, I could have sat there for at least another hour. And buy a herring as a reward.
Of course I showed the herring vendor this drawing in my sketchbook:
 
'Lekker' means 'delicious'. 
His respond when seeing the drawing was: "Well that's a hundred percent solid". Glad we agreed.

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