Watercolour and pencil illustration inspired by Kazuo Ishiguro´s book The Buried Giant and Iceland of course.
The weather today really invites to keep on sleeping. Enjoy your weekend!
Tag: Iceland
Day 6 – Window View #WorldWatercolorMonth
My first thought for this prompt was to draw gluggaveður as Icelanders call it.
Gluggaveður (noun)
“When the weather seems great, when you’re looking through a window from inside, but is actually cold and not so great when you step out without a jacket. Literally it means “window-weather.””
But because the weather is actually nice and almost warm outside, I ended up drawing the opposite. Typical shitty Icelandic windy and stormy autumn day. Let´s keep it realistic.
Inspired by Iceland Throwback
Went through my photos as I was looking for something specific. Found anything but the photo I was looking for. But amongst them I discovered this gem from 2016 – an inspired by Iceland kitsch compilation postcard that I drew to send to the boyfriends family.
Ice cream – work in progress
The reasons for the few updates lately are that I simply did not have time to sit down and draw, and when I found time, then I was stuck with this watercolor painting.
I have been on it for more than a week now and still haven´t figured out the background… I ate a lot of ice cream in between too, to look for inspiration… still looking, so I will keep on eating until I find it.
Ice Cream Cravings
It has been sunny second day in a row! That´s when those ice cream cravings come up. At my new favourite ice cream parlour, conveniently just a 5 minute bike ride from home, the scoops are massive. Two are pretty much a meal. Bigger is better!
This actually could be me. I admit.
Icelandic Farm Life
Another prompt from #WorldWatercolorMonth. I turned the farm life into an Icelandic farm life.
At the end of spring, farmers will bring their sheep up into the mountains, where they will roam wild and free during the summer months. In the beginning of September farmers will go out and start gathering them again. This is called Réttir – the annual sheep round-up.
Visit at the ice cream parlor
The last picture in my series of ice cream dedicated drawings for the moment. I am pretty sure I will revisit them at some point. I think it was a fun theme to practice drawing and those water colours on.
I was bored the other night at a friends place where I tried out a beautiful set of Japanese watercolours. The inspiration was a photo of the Valdís Ice cream parlor in Reykavik. They bake their own waffles in the back so you always have that delicious waffle smell in your nose upon entering. The ice cream is quite delicious too.
I´ll not only take a break from ice cream but also the land of ice – Iceland – as I ´ll be heading to Mexico for 2 months! To do what, I don´t know yet, but my priorities are to learn Spanish and to get some sun! But I also have my drawing stuff packed and I will see what I come up with while on the road.
Until then, enjoy your ice cream!
Extra sugar on Thursday
The week is more than half way over, so you might need a little bit of extra sugar to keep you going until the weekend.
These ones are more of the typical Icelandic style kind of ice creams that you get at most ice cream parlors. Soft ice cream in a box with any kind of topping you can think of – From Mars bars, to Oreos, Smarties, Skittles, coconut bars, biscuits and much much more and everything topped with chocolate and caramel sauce. Don´t forget the cream!
If that doesn´t give you a sugar high then I don´t know.
Do you want ice cream?
Yes, Icelanders love ice cream. Most areas in Reykjavik have at least one ísbúð – ice cream parlor. The ísbúð we have just down the road from where we live is so packed on a late Friday night that you might think they are handing out free beers.
Ice cream is a year round affair in any kind of weather. I drove home last Tuesday around 10pm, everything white and snow was blowing left and right. I passed a street full of shops, all dark except for the ice cream parlor which was brightly lit and packed with people while the snow storm was blowing outside. How did they get there you wonder? Most locals don´t walk but only go places by car. So if your sole purpose is to drive to the next ice cream parlor then Icelanders even have a word for it – ísbíltúr – ice cream drive.
Cold and dark winter doesn´t stop anyone to get what they want – in this case a sweet treat. From my personal experience, I can openly admit that my sweets consumption increases proportionally with the darkness in winter and decreases when the daylight hours get longer again.
I like ice cream all year round and let´s put it that way, if it is cold outside, then at least it will not melt! What´s your faveourite time to eat it?
Strawberry kiss
I wanted to do something again with more ink as I miss my Inktober challenge. I really enjoyed drawing and painting with it.
So this is what it turned into. Strawberry ice cream.
Do you like strawberry ice cream?
There is ice cream on the ground – “Datt!”
“Datt” – an Icelandic word you will hear uttered especially by children after dropping absolutely anything (when living in Iceland of course). It means as much as “oops fallen”. It fell and I don’t know how it happened…!?
“Datt!”
More water colour and ink.
Mannequins
Mannequins are standing in a row….
Absoluetly love this song
Dancer
Practiced drawing with ink pens. Results see below.
Pelican!
Fell in love with pelicans while watching them surf the waves of the pacific ocean in Guatemala.
Also uploaded some other drawings.
Update 2014
So finally something new. Have started painting again and the first one has been added to the 2014 gallery. Although I am not sure whether I am actually happy with it or not. Hmm… I might change it after I am finished with the one I am currently working on. I spent my last few off days painting butterflies. Here some excerpts.
Melanie Franz 