Tag Archives: “Glücklich in Berlin”

July unterwegs Nr. 1 – Love on the U-Bahn

love bugs by Suzanne Forbes July 6 2017I had to draw these two!

These beautiful mid-life German lovebugs were clearly tourists from a smaller town, consulting directions and reassuring each other.

tween by Suzanne Forbes June 20 2017 This poised tween was reading a paper book and wearing 80s style jeans.

Ah, the cycle of life.

You can see the drawings before adding mixed media on my Instagram, and previous unterweg drawings here:

June

May bonus round

May round one

April

March 2

March

January

December

November

Women make amazing tattoo art in Berlin.

Daria tattooing by Suzanne Forbes June 29 2017I drew Daria tattooing at Tremuschi Ink, the studio where she creates her works.

I swung for the fences with this one, and I kinda missed. To try and apply my new techniques of mixed media coloring to such a complex, detailed drawing – with such deep space!- was perhaps an act of hubris. I barely have a grasp of this new approach, and definitely don’t feel skilful in handling pastels.

And I absolutely loved the drawing in its original state. But I felt I had to see if I could make it even better. I’m not sure I did.

Daria tattooing by Suzanne Forbes June 2017 line versionLuckily, in a moment of foresight, I photocopied the original line drawing.

Drawings by Suzanne Forbes Berlin June 2017The scan is dark, because the photocopy picked up the midtone of the kraft paper, and I hadn’t finished drawing Daria’s tattoo machine. Someone with better digital editing skills than me can sort out the values, prolly.

I was quite scared to add the mixed media (pastel, oil pastel and markers) to the line drawing, and it took me almost a month to get down to it.

Rightly so; it turned out to be a bit beyond me to fully reconcile the values so the drawing reads well.

I kinda feel like I destroyed something I really liked, and that’s good. You gotta kill your darlings in the art biz.

After all, I can always make another drawing of Daria making a tattoo. And I want to go back to Tremuschi and draw Vivi tattooing too, when she gets back from her tattoo cons of Europe tour! I might do a whole series of drawings of women tattoo artists of Berlin!