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| Swan Family, watercolour, 5.8" x 8. 3" |
Hard to believe that this is the last weekend of August already. I intend to spend as much time outside as possible. It is not only the back-to-school advertisement that makes me think of fall. I have noticed the first orange leaves on some of our trees. The last warm days are even more precious because we know that the warm days are numbered. Enjoy the weekend! Play and have fun! I will be back with a new blog on this upcoming Friday.
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| pencil sketch of the visitors of the concert at the Alte Oper |
Blog 12
During my spring visit to Germany, I spent some time in Frankfurt/Main. There is also another Frankfurt in the East of the country. This Eastern Frankfurt is situated along the river Oder in Brandenburg, while the Frankfurt in Hesse is on the river Main.
In my last blog, I wrote about my visit to Frankfurt's botanical garden, the Palmengarten (https://kerstinpeterspaintingblog.blogspot.com/2022/08/visit-to-palmengarten.html). For a landscape and animal painter like myself, the place was a paradise of inspiration. However, this is just one attraction Frankfurt am Main has to offer.
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| Frankfurt/Main skyline with the river Main in the foreground |
Frankfurt is the biggest city in Hesse, and many assume it is also the capital. However, Wiesbaden is the capital of Hesse. Frankfurt is the financial centre of Germany and offers many cultural sights that attract millions of tourists yearly. In this blog, I will present two of the not-to-be-missed attractions for tourists and citizens alike.
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| Alte Oper, Frankfurt/Main - a photo from a previous trip |
The Alte Oper (Old Opera) is a concert hall in Frankfurt/Main, where you can attend classical concerts, musicals, and concerts of famous stars of various music genres and dance performances. Some of the smaller halls in the building are also popular for congresses. Until its destruction by bombs in 1944, it was an opera house. Most of the outer wall survived the attack. Nevertheless, it took until the 1970s for the decision about the future of the building. In the end, citizens organized to collect money for the reconstruction.
The building is in the banking district of Frankfurt. When I still worked in one of the buildings, it was only about 5 minutes walking distance away. Looking back, I cannot comprehend why I did not spend more time in the square in front of the building, where a big fountain is a great spot to enjoy lunch. We were so focused on work that it seemed a waste to leave the building to eat outside. Instead, we often eat our lunch in front of the computer.
During my trip, I had the pleasure to attend one of the Sunday Concerts, the Jean Sibelius Concert for Violine and Orchester D minor, Op. 47 and the Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 1 C minor. Augustin Hadelich, the young violinist who played the solos during the Sibelius concert, was mesmerizing. The surroundings and the fantastic musicians made it a first-class event.
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| pencil sketches from the concert at the Alte Oper |
We sat far from the stage. I was struggling with the hands, but I caught enough to remember the musicians.
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| Städel Museum, Frankfurt/Main |
A few days later, I had the pleasure of visiting another cultural centre in the city, the Städel Museum on the banks of the Main river owns one of the most important collections in Germany. This time, I saw the special exhibition, RENOIR. ROCOCO REVIVAL. The show examined how 18th-century Roccoco art influenced his impressionist style. The art was a treat for the eyes. You can check out the fantastic video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0PeT_HvlMA and the Städel Digitorial at https://renoir.staedelmuseum.de/en/.
Even without visiting a special exhibition, the Städel is worth a visit with its extensive collections of European art from the past 700 years.
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If you read my blog last week, you might enjoy some photos that I took during the visit. Here is a link to the blog again:
I will tell you more about other activities next Friday.
Have a great week!
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| Water Lily, watercolour, 5.8" x 8. 3" |
Blog 11
After I told you about my travel odyssey last time, it is time to turn to the pleasant sides of my Germany trip. Whenever I visit Germany, I enjoy being a tourist in my country. You probably know from experience that you have so many plans to see the sights in your area but often only do it when you have guests from afar. In the upcoming blogs, I will give you a glimpse of some of the attractions in the Rhine-Main area.
When I left Ottawa at the end of May to go to Germany, I was excited that I had seen the tulips and lilacs in bloom. I had feared that I would miss these signs of spring. Both had long finished blooming in Germany. Early spring flowers, like crocuses, start to bloom in mid-February in the milder regions of Germany. At the end of May, my parents' garden was a paradise of blooms, reflecting my mother’s love for flowers. When she was younger, she wanted to become a gardener or florist, but her father thought people could not earn money working with their hands. He would probably not believe what some craftsmen make these days.
She is, however, not the only one with a green thumb. My father is also taking excellent care of their shrubs and plants. Unfortunately, I did not inherit this gift. Our yard looks rather wild because I have a hard time caring for our flower beds despite my best intentions every year. However, my artist's eye appreciates the beauty and variety of forms and colours. I am interested more in observing and capturing nature's gifts on paper or canvas. Summer and fall are my favourite seasons because of the richness of brilliant colours. Some of my favourite flowers, roses, hibiscuses and peonies, were the most stunning plants that bloomed while I was in Germany.
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Above, you see some of the drawings and paintings I created. For most of them I used watercolours and watercolour pencils. The varies flowers in the top right image are from my sketchbook. I used coloured pencils.
Due to my limited mobility, I tried to arrange sightseeing trips with my friends that offered easy access and opportunities to rest and walk at a leisurely pace. When I saw that the Palmengarten hosted the Rose Week in mid-June, I was determined to go. Even though I had worked only about one kilometre from the botanical gardens for many years, I never went there before. I even had several balls at one of the buildings after dance courses without any idea about the beauty of nature accessible to the public.
June was sweltering. Temperatures reached over 30 degrees centigrade. However, a friend and I picked the perfect day, the only slightly crisper day to visit the gardens. Many of the roses had started blooming early in the hot weather, and the gardeners had a lot of work to trim the dead blooms of the bushes. We had a fantastic time studying the large varieties of roses and checking their sweet smell. Did you know that only a few had a strong fragrance and that the intensity decreased with the ripeness of the flower?
While the roses were stunning, other parts of the park were also breathtaking. We followed the path around one pond where you could rent boats to another pond with turtles sunbathing or swimming with ducks and enormous carp. One fish was jumping out of the water twice to avoid a collision with another one. I wish I had my camera ready at that moment. It would have been a phenomenal shot.
We saw cute chicks following their mom on their first adventures. They did not care about the pedestrians walking around them. There were proud geese with amazingly coloured feathers walking proudly on the path as if they were royalty.
The rock garden and the heather garden contained some outstanding plants - some looked like glass objects created by Chihuly. It was fascinating to see that nature produces specimens that look like futuristic artworks. While we enjoyed refreshments at the cafe in the Villa Leonhardi, I drew one of the gigantic specimens. The plant bloom was about 75 cm long, and the leaves were probably more than a meter in diameter.
We took our time to explore the grounds but managed to see only about one-third of the area. We did not even go into any buildings to see the tropical plants. However, we loved the stunning water lilies in the pool at the entrance. I found so much inspiration there that I wished I could take my painting buddies for a trip to the garden. I would visit the Palmengarten monthly if I still lived in the Frankfurt/Main area. There is plenty to see, and the view changes with the seasons.
After this unforgettable excursion, I returned to Frankfurt twice for other cultural events. I will tell you more about them in two weeks.
If you spent time in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, I would love to hear about your experiences and recommendations.
