meet george hendrik breitner. he painted that moody scene above.
and willem witsen the one below.
ready for a trip to amsterdam?! i'm going for 2 long weeks this autumn. i've never been to the netherlands and after my voyage to venice back in december, i am happy to be returning to a watery canal city. i'll be exploring in and around amsterdam – a sketching blogging adventuring fool. of course, all stowaways are welcome!
i was planning to do a "Ticket To…" class, but smack dab in the middle of making postcards i would send out daily, i felt myself getting too absorbed in the process. the horse blinders were on and i knew they wouldn't be coming off for a couple of months. too much work for my sloth-like ways. i want to enjoy the last 4 months of my sabbatical traveling – locally & abroad. i want to relish every moment of these final days deeply engrossed in art play. my year is up in january after all! yes, i'm returning to the classroom, but plan to make these unpaid leaves of absence a regular part of my working life. that's the plan for now and i feel good about it. settled. knowing i can (and will) take another leave in a couple of years provides some context and levity for any difficult situation i may encounter back in the classroom.
i've enrolled again in the mary ann moss school of sketching. you remember it? i sketch everything under the sun between now and date of departure which is rapidly approaching!
the rijksmuseum has a section called rijks studio. a virtual whirlpool of inspiration! i've been downloading things from their collection and sketching away.
i've started building my super sized sketchbook. will post progress shots in the coming days.
I wanna gooooooo!
Oh, and I must have the name of the apartment where you are staying when you return. I’m planning a trip in early 2014 and that apartment looks like my kind of heaven. Lemme know how you like it when you get back.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Mary Ann
Good choice! If you ‘need’ a guide… I am glad to be! I live in Amersfoort only half an hour by train from Amsterdam… Hedwig
Do try to get out in the countryside to some of the smaller towns like Edam or Gouda. They are not very touristy away from the center but quiet and calm and very sketchable.
If you can’t, there is a lovely little place on the North Amsterdam side called
Niewendam. You can go on a ferry and bus. It is tiny and very cute. Don’t walk from the ferry, it is a long long way.
You will have a wonderful time whatever you do!
Two weeks! What a glorious end to your sabbatical. Enjoy every minute. And if possible, let us stowaway in your bag.
In June our stopover on the way to the Marseilles Airport was Amsterdam. Is it possible to fall in love with an airport? I did…blue and white patterns everywhere…(notice the drum shades around the light fixtures! So cool) oh, how I wished I had more time to explore. Their airport is their best advertisement because I know I will go back someday to experience their country…lucky you, your trip sounds like heaven. Bon voyage!
Sketch on, Dear Dispatch Warrior!
your work is looking fantastic, as usual. So fresh, so bold and you have that casual looseness that sketchers crave to keep their work from looking too stiff, technical and…..well?….constipated. I feel happy and inspired every time that I see the magic of your pens, markers, brushes.
Amsterdam?….all I have to say on the subject:
HELL yes.
Why do I all of a sudden feel sad by the thought that your sabbatical ends? How odd. As much as I would have loved another travel class it might be a wise decision to get to the bottom of the pitcher and enjoy it as much as you can. Without peeps all around you. I love Amsterdam. Have wonderful memories of good and bad times there. The good times were uber good, the bad uber bad, but O So worth it. Don’t forget to look up and to the floor. I dare you to find the bronze statue built/sunk in the floor depicting a hand on a woman’s breast. Let us know if you found it.
Enjoy Mary Ann… All of it. Do the Beguinage. Do the Anne Frank house… Wished I could cross the channel and go with you. ;o)))
How exciting!! I went there many years ago with my Mom and had a wonderful time. Plus, most people speak English, so there is not much of a problem with communication. It was great to learn about my Grandfather’s homeland and I look forward to returning some day with my daughter. Can’t wait to see it through your eyes!!
I envy you. I do. It’s not pretty but it’s true. I think it is great that you are digging into this pre-trip with some in depth sketch-o-palooza. What a treat to see you advance in this art form.
~Dawn
Envy as a bright green field here.
I lived in Amsterdam in the 70s. And if you want any old neighbour ideas let me know although I seriously suspect all has changed since I left.
Have a wonderful time. Goeje reis (travel well)!
LOVE LOVE LOVE that you are doing this. You will notice in the paintings of the old Masters and others, a beautiful shade of “Netherlands” grey which seems to exist everywhere. In the ‘good old days’ when living in London, one could fly to Amsterdam or Paris on Friday return Sunday for 11 pounds including hotel. Cheap even then. The dollar was worth about $2.50 – so for roughly $25.00 a weekend in the beautiful city of canals was yours. Your sketches are amazing. xoDonna
I went to Holland on a photography workshop. We went as a group in March several years ago. I loved everything we did. I would have loved to stay in Amsterdam but the teacher only planned one day in Amsterdam. I chose to visit Anne Frank’s House and go to the museum to see the sunflowers. Enjoy your journey.
love that last one! Are you using the coptic or watercolors for those beautiful shades of blue?
Wow!You’re coming to my country! Hope you get to see something more of The Netherlands than ‘just’ Amsterdam in those two weeks (as cities go The Hague and Utrecht are my favorite), but I’m sure they will fly by. Look forward to traveling along with you and seeing how you view our capital. And if through some miracle (it is rather out of the way after all) you go up north to the Wadden Islands, do drop by!
Oh! Amsterdam! Wow. I can’t wait to take a gander “with you” while you sketch and wander, enjoy and enlighten yourself, and us, while you are there. I will be headed to Southern Africa in early October for a wild and wooly adventure of my own. We are traveling fools, aren’t we? (My MAM-style travel journal will accompany me. Thanks for giving me the tools to make it myself.)
And aren’t we are blessed to be able to scratch our itchy feet this way!
Wahoo! Another galavant across the pond! I’ve heard nothing but great things from friends who have visited Holland…all loved it and would go back in a heartbeat.
So glad to hear that you have decided how to spend your teaching years. Great idea to take a little siesta from the hectic pace and mini-minds found in our professional world. Pacing yourself has got to be a great way to cope. I’m wishing you every good thing for the new year. In the meantime, get every precious moment out of this special time for yourself. You two will have a great time and I’ll be here following along enjoying every bit of that trip.
Happy to hear of your upcoming trip & hoping to see some journal pages ala MAM. You need to enjoy the rest of your leave. Don’t know how often you blog when you’re working, but it’s certainly been fun checking your blog every day while you’ve been focusing on your art & other fun stuff. So interesting.
Good plan! Glad to hear you’ll have more personal control over your teaching future. Great destination, too. Hope you’ll be blogging on the road. Hey, guess what? my epis are going into bloom cycle again! Talk soon. xo
What a great life plan! Do you ever read my friend, Tara’s blog? She moved from Paris to Amsterdam a few years ago and her blog is so lovely and she did one whole blog post on Delft…what a beautiful place…and colors! and yeah for you and going with your sister.
how lovely. will be waiting & watching, with great anticipation, for your posts and amazing journey. enjoy.
I hope you love the Dutch as much as I do. Go to the central train station and LOOK at all the bicycles! You will have to learn how to navigate around cyclists. Schiphol airport has a gift shop in the middle with wooden flowers and they make wonderful/reasonable gifts for friends – I always pick up several. I wish I could take you to Driehuis, a simple town near the coast with forests that are beautiful. You will fall in love. I’m going to pull out my bits because I can’t remember the names…
And don’t forget all those wonderful Dutch cheeses to taste!! Oh what fun! I look forward to your account — my stories of the Netherlands are so faded considering it was 40 years ago already since I have been there! I do remember having a wonderful (huge) Dutch breakfast with piles and piles of food, I think in a worker’s hostel in Rotterdam but I am sure the breakfasts are available elsewhere. You will not go hungry! Have a wonderful time!!
I think you are wise – just travel and sketch and eat and paint for the rest of your sabbatical! I envy you and wish you all the best. Can’t wait to see what’s going on in Amsterdam!
Cheering for you Mary Ann. I’m pleased to hear that you are giving this trip to yourself and fully absorbing it with no strings attached anywhere or to anyone.I think that is a very good plan indeed. Those 4 months are going to just fly by so being able to wring every second out out of them, doing only what you feel like doing and playing to your heart’s content, whether that is sketching, reading, wandering the streets of Amsterdam; I’ll just sit back and enjoy the views you share from here and stowaway secretly in a pocket. Can’t be those side views. Your plan sounds like a really, really good one and knowing you can always take a sabbatical when you need to is just plain good medicine for the soul, heart and mind. I’d say your practice sketches are coming along wonderfully.
I lived in the Netherlands in the late 80s and have been back several times including 2005 for our honeymoon. Holland is a wonderful, wonderful country. Beware of the Rijstafel side dishes. They go from mild to holy cow hot. Some restaurants have as many as 40 side dishes. We lived in Wassenaar just outside the Hague. Be sure to explore outside of Amsterdam. In Leiden there is a neighborhood where the pilgrims lived for years before they sailed to the New World. Wish I could go, too.
You are going to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Amsterdam and just be prepared to sketch until your fingers are worn to a nub! I was there in 2000 and had a wonderful time. I would go back tomorrow if I could!!
Be sure you do not miss the opportunity to go to a Rijstafel (Rice Toffel) at an Indonesian Restaurant while you are there. It is basically a large pot of rice served with lots and lots of side dishes. It is an experience you won’t soon forget. They recommended that we have beer with our meal and even though I don’t really like beer, it tasted pretty good with what we ate.
You are a lucky pup! Have fun and your fans will be waiting to see your posts so we can go vicariously with you.