From Hamburg to Denmark back to COPA CABANA

Since little over a week I have storm-free pad.

Means: I am an orphaned mother, whose son is on a scout trip and who suddenly has a lot of time to look around for herself at home and browse through boxes or memories, walk through the streets and finally come home after a four-hour walk.

So now I come to these drawings, which I started on vacation in Denmark about three years ago. I bought the sketchbook in Sønderborg. That was the biggest town near Fynshav, our little vacation hiding place.

The impressions accompanied me on the way to my holiday destination, through landscapes of gentle hills and tree-lined rivers, finally to the coast. I let myself be captivated by the quiet story of a circumnavigator around the world in his book, which let my mind wander and raised the same questions as the author, who looked at a calm and endless sea. While outside on the wooden veranda, wrapped in a blanket, quietly reading; completely absorbing the mood that took possession of me.

The water did not come very close to me. Only the boys and my man went swimming in the sea. It was clearly too cold for me and I stayed on the beach and watched the men go about their business. The next day the boys collected starfish, shells, crabs and other sea creatures in buckets. They waded around in the shallow sea with their pants bumped up and held their heads down concentrated.

What leisure can give you is shown by my small naïve drawings, which on the one hand represent pure fantasy, on the other hand rough copies of what you have seen. I like to draw with a ballpoint pen to create flowers and trees. I have photographed the turned over pages and have a little reworked the light conditions, because the exposure was not sufficient. The original drawings are actually made with a blue ballpoint pen.

Denmark is an unexciting country.

And that is why it is so attractive to go there. It is gentle, not extreme at all, it seems as if not so many people live there in one pile. I can be wrong, because I don't have numbers. I was in Las Vegas. And I mean, there is probably no greater contrast than the raucous Vegas and the little town on a Danish coast. In summer the days there are really very long.

I remember windmills, not the modern, but the old-fashioned ones. One was open for inspection and we took the opportunity to explore the floors and admire the partly old grain mill stones and the gear train of the mill. Such a millstone is impressive! Big and heavy. It still smelled of grain and leather in the rooms, such a smell is not to be got out of a building, which was operated over such a long time.

Whenever we made our trips, either on foot or by car, I stretched my neck to admire the many flowers on the roadside. At the entrance to our small road, at a sunny spot, a gigantic magnolia tree lined the road and I thought: Is it true? Magnolias in Denmark? But actually we have them with us in Germany and they survive the winter.

I must have copied my fondness for flowers and drawing them with a ballpoint pen from my mother as a child. She decorated her letters with numerous pansy blossoms and wrote very long and extensively. I wasn't aware that I was watching her.

The sketch book is deserted since then.

I took it at hand again very shortly after our return, when the summer was still here in full splendour. I decided for a walk through the neighbourhood and sat outside in front of a cocktail bar, which also was open during the day. Already with the intention to draw something, I chose my place and enjoyed in sunshine the slow completion of my sketch.

This is how it looked like from my seat.

Here is the address of that fine place,

in case you will going to visit Hamburg as a tourist:
COPA CABANA
Clemens-Schultz-Straße 79
20359 Hamburg

And this is how the bar actually looks like.

It changed over time so I am uncertain when this picture was taken. I have it from this source - altered it from color to black and white:

I hope you enjoyed the little trip. I don't have any holidays yet, but since I am without maternal responsibility, it feels like this to me. Strange.

I am already very curious which medium I will choose for my upcoming stay in Italy. I am thinking about taking my sewing machine with me. But the drawing book will definitely make it into the suitcase.

Enjoy summer time. Or winter. Depends, right?

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Sketches by erh.germany

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