About 50 of us or so from the whole course went on the Berlin trip at the end of February. There wasn’t a specific set brief apart from to record Berlin however we liked, be it drawing, photography or collecting and trying to find a common thread running through the city to I suppose give more focus to the work being produced. Other then that, the tutors didn’t really have a set plan for where to visit either and me and my freinds pretty much set our own plan around the city. We covered a lot on foot and I really felt like I really saw and experienced the city this time properly. I have been once before on a school history trip and much of the “sightseeing” done on that trip was through the window of a coach. And even though I would have liked the tutors to show a bit more initiative, I really enjoyed the freedom I had this time round to roam free in the city.
I began just photographing and with this I focused more on the bright colours predominant in Berlin and different shapes (narrowing this down particularly to circles) but once I started drawing my focus shifted more the the architecture. Still even through this I think the thread remained with the colours, especially a specific yellow which we all noticed everywhere. Berlin, I already knew was quite a modern city with much of it being left destroyed after WW2 and this time I really felt it, in the centre they seem to disregard any rules for their buildings they are modern, slick and juxtaposed and the public spaces really seem considered and really work. Out of the centre, the post-war blocks of flats are specked with bright colours and the city really seems intent on being happy and forgetting its divided history.
Here are some of the buildings that I recorded in Berlin. The jewish museum I didn’t use any colour for but it was mainly grey and quite colourless unlike a lot of the other modern buildings in Berlin. And inside it is designed to the same effect, the most thought-provoking and interesting part of the museum are the floors that explore the holocaust, with recordings of what happened to hundereds of Jewish families along with their personal photographs and objects that belonged to them (ei a violin, a sewing machine, a typewriter). Then there is the holocaust tower, a dark, stony grey, unheated room with a high ceiling and just one slit of natural light. The voices from outside are muffled and it felt very eerie to be inside, I was at first even afraid to go inside and then to close the large heavy door, a corner of the room was completely dark but I knew someone was walking towards me, but I didn’t know who. It turned out to be one of my tutors but the room had already taken its effect. It was a very hostile and quite unhuman environment and I think conveyed something of what it felt like to be a holocaust victim. As did the Garden of exiles with its large grey domineering high stone towers. The architecture inside and out was used to an amazing probing effect.
This is an old people’s home that I decided to draw because of its seductively happy bright yellow colour and used a fluroscent pen (even though it is not completely accurate to the original colour) to underline the contrast again between that yellow and the grey drab soviet apartment block- feel of the rest of the building which I just did in pencil. The red parts were done on felt tip and colour pencil.
Here are some of the photos I took going along with the thread of the colour yellow.
Here is an example of the modern and inventive architecture that I kept seeing in Berlin but unlike other european citiies where the modern buildings are just glassy and gleaming, it is still tinged with bright colours. This building was just opposite the raised green space I mentioned earlier. The different shapes of the building interested me and getting its basic outlines and the persepectives was the most difficult part, adding the colour with my new pencil that has for different colours in the led, was in contrast pure enjoyment. I wasn’t however too interested in making an aesthetically pleasing drawing and was more interested in understanding the structure of the building and thats why I think the drawing produced isn’t particularly evocative or striking.
Other work I made in Berlin was a portrat of my freind Cait and two small pen sketches of a dancing crowd while out clubbing which has to be the one of the stragest environments I have tried to draw in. I had to draw very quickly because of the constant movement and because of that I think the sketches had turned very lively and energetic.
The portrait of my freind however does not look completely like her but there is a little resemblance and I always think it is good practice to do potraits from lige especially for me as I have difficulty in caprturing people exactly, doing this with a pen that can’t be rubbed out also always proves an extra challenge.
Finally on the last day I also made sketches as we took a river boat tour. I used pencil and an ink pen and I am glad the boat had to return us to the same place again because on the way back seeing the same sights I was able to go over parts I had not finished or clarify over the pencil with my pen. I am quite pleased with the results. I like the way I’ve layered all the sights together as I saw them and although it is overcrowded I like this effect of a busy and bustling city. On the tour we went through quite a lot of old parts of town and at first I was fascinated by the different and ornate lamposts but as the boat went on I interspersed these with some more well known sights but concentrating more on their shapes and outlines then depicting what they actually were.
All in all I really enjoyed the trip to Berlin and it provided me with an opportunity to do the journal-keeping way of working that I really enjoyed doing on the club brief when I went round the reservoir with the birdwatchers. Having the commitment to keep up that sort of way of working and drawing all the time is still something I have to work on though.
