Sketching Challenge Completed
In England there is an initiative called The Big Draw. Every year there is a new motto and numerous events. The aim is to promote drawing, to remind people how much fun it is, how useful it is, to show the diversity, etc. An action in 2022 was led by Marigold Palmer-Jones, an artist from London. Her mission is to establish drawing as a calming influence in life. We participants committed us to make a drawing every day in May and to post it in a closed Facebook group and/or on Instagram. There were also some live events on Instagram and Zoom for exchange and motivation.
I myself have been drawing daily for my 10-year diary for a long time. So now sharing with others was added. My drawings are very small, only 2 cm high. I also use a ballpoint pen with a relatively broad tip. The result was 31 illustrated mini stories, which I have collected again here.
May 1: My Former Band
We met with old friends last evening. The friends told me that there is a recording of a concert of my band (which we called “Flowers on the breast“) from 1991 on the internet from which I hadn’t heard before. I found it on youtube, funny thing and a little bit embarassing. I showed this to my children who couldn’t believe what they saw :) The drawing shows three of us, Elger the drummer in the background, me (Jörg) with a fender guitar and a microphone and another Jörg with another guitar. That was a fun time and I really love to remember those times.
May 2: A bee in a bush
Our garden really looks like spring at the moment. Flowers and blossoms everywhere. There is one bush that we don’t quite like, because, well, it’s not the kind of plants we like. The bees of our surroundings think completely to the opposite. The bush is full of them. So we leave it there. I like drawing animals and plants.
May 3: Ronnie Celebrating
When I walked the dog yesterday I saw many muslim people in their gardens celebrating the sugar feast. They were sitting around tables, on the tables I saw lots of bottles with soft drinks (I guess). So I decided to draw this on the next morning. But then I saw the final of the snooker world championship in the evening and how brilliantly Ronnie o’Sullivan won. Very moving the scenes after the game with his daughter, son, dad and friends. I am a big fan of Ronnie, it was his 7th win of the world championship, so I had to draw him … I decided to combine both sujets and drew Ronnie (with queue) and his family sitting at a table with the championship cup and some bottles of soft drinks. A quite bad drawing of a silly idea I think … But you have to keep in mind that my drawings are really small (2 centimeters high).
May 4: The New Rack and Basket
I attached a rack and a basket to my daughter’s (she’s eight years old) new bike, of which she is extremely proud. In the morning, she wants to carry her school rucksack in it, but the rucksack is too heavy and so it doesn’t work. I remember that I made an invention to solve exactly this problem two years ago … I’ll have to think about that.
May 5: At the Dentist
Yesterday a lot of things happened. I decided to draw something which is easiest to do (I thought). In the morning, I had my routine check at the dentist. My teeth were fine (yeah!), but despite of this, something is wrong with this picture. Can you find out what it is?* When you draw from imagination you sometimes forget reality ...
* Usually my dentist is wearing gloves
May 6: Rievkooche
My day was rather complicated, so I kept it simple and drew a famous dish of my region, which I cooked yesterday. It is one of the few dishes that the whole family likes, made of potatoes, onions and eggs.
May 7: A Bird Collecting Cat Hair
Just a small bird (in German called “Kohlmeise“, in English “Great Tit“) collecting a tuft of cat hair from the mat in front of the garden door. I think it will use the hair to build a nest.
May 8: Football
Yesterday I was in the stadium of 1. FC Köln with my son, my daughter and her friend. Our club plays the best season since 30 years, so dispite of losing this time, the fans ran onto the field after the game („platzsturm“ in German). And so did we. We even grasped a piece of the lawn, which we now have put in our garden … The club will play in Europaleague or Conference League next season, so maybe you will hear from us!
May 9: Flowers in a jug
Yesterday, of course, was mother’s day. This is a bunch of flowers from my son to my wife, in a glass jug which I still keep from my childhood. The children also gave small presents and we had a very nice and sunny breakfast which we all quite enjoyed. My wife said that she felt “really honoured“. In the afternoon I visited my 93 years old mother, too.
May 10: Pixi the cat
It was a beautiful evening and we sat on the terrace to have dinner. Our cat Pixi (we have two other cats) saw us from the balcony above. Usually, she is too shy to go into the garden, but yesterday she saw and smelled that somebody had chicken. So she took all her courage and jumped off the balcony to get some. She was successful!
May 11: A Headache
I woke up at about 6:30 with a terrible headache. Nevertheless, I stood up, drank a coffee, took a painkiller, but it didn’t get better. So I went back to bed, something I can do quite easily, thanks to my self-employment, but I nearly never do. I fell asleep for about 4 more hours and that was just great! The rest of the day I felt a small rest of the headache, but I also felt easy and relaxed.
May 12: Pizza “Tennis”
One of the things I like most about drawing is that you can draw a picture of reality, but you can also draw a picture of fantasy. Here, it is a mix. I played tennis yesterday, like every Wednesday. After that we had some food in the restaurant of our tennis club. I had a pizza. Here I drew the freshly invented pizza “tennis“, with small tennis rackets and balls. Crispy and tasty, of course.
May 13: My new glasses
Maybe this is the last drawing I did wearing my old glasses (1 diopter). I drew my new glasses (1,5 diopters) which I wore yesterday when I did my minidrawing of the pizza. It was amazing that I saw all the details! It has a foldable frame, so I can carry the glasses always in my pocket. Will I ...?
May 14: Two bikes, three pizzas and a dog
My wife is on a weekend trip so I am alone with kids and animals. In the evening, my son and I tried to do three things at once: carrying pizza home from the restaurant, going by bike and walking the dog. That didn’t work out very well … The dog was scared and ran in front of the bike of my son, he fell to the ground (as a football player he knows how to fall without hurting), we had to walk, the pizzas became cold …
May 15: A Guardian Angel
I had to cope with very annoying technical issues at my computer. For hours and hours I tried things that didn’t work and I became more and more frustrated. Then, my little daughter appeared and asked if she could help. I said no and tried to explain the problem. She said that she had an idea and brought a small box. She said that in it was her guardian angel and surely it could help me. I said thanks and tried further. And than the following happened: I saw the solution to my problem immediately. And it was much easier than I thought the whole time. So, who helped my, was it my daughter, her angel or the fact that I told somebody of my problem? I believe, it was all those things together.
May 16: Liv‘s Communion
We were invited to the First Communion of Liv, the daughter of friends who live nearby. It was a garden party, brilliant weather, nice people, cold drinks and very good vegan food. Our friends keep three chickens, which ran and pecked among the guests in the garden. I looked at these beautiful creatures and felt a little guilty because I had made chicken soup the day before.
May 17: Rain
The first rain in weeks made not only the plants happy, but also my daughter Alva who was dancing and cheering between the raindrops.
May 18: My New Website
Nearly day and night I am working on my new website, a new online portfolio and so on. And, in fact, I am drawing a lot. Yesterday, when I finally shut the computer down, I even had problems seeing clearly. For one of my projects I drew a “remix“ version of the cologne cathedral (which originally only has two main towers) together with a green parrot. Those parrots are quite common here. Churches with three towers not.
May 19: My Hands
We had a barbecue in the evening and I burnt my right hand a bit with the grill. It is often like this, that you only appreciate things when they are out of order. I can do so many things with my hands: play tennis and my guitar, touch somebody, carry things, draw, cook … and even cool the other hand with an ice cube. Funny (and also tragical): I also hurt my hand exactly on that day one year ago (what I know thanks to my graphic diary).
May 20: Solar Panels
I finally know why they had built a scaffold at the front of the houses of our neighbours. In our small street there are 12 houses and the first two are the nicest. They were built in the 1950s and exude a subtle charme. We thought they would renovate the houses or paint them in another colour, but they left them as they are and built solar panels on their roofs instead. I think, this is a nice contrast, the modern roof and the windows with its old wooden window shutters..
May 21: In the Swimming Pool
Alva, Cordt and I went to the pool where we played “Schweinchen in der Mitte“ (piggy in the middle). It‘s a swimming pool with outdoor and indoor pools, so we could go in during a thunderstorm. Before the thunder and lightning started, it was fun to stand in the water and feel the raindrops from above.
May 22: Relationships
At the moment I‘m reading a book about relationships by a famous German psychologist. She says that everyone must find the balance between personal freedom and connection with others. The title page shows a nest with two eggs. I wonder about this picture because the book is about relationships between lovers, not siblings. But I think those relationships are also important. Yesterday we celebrated my oldest brother‘s 70th birthday and our other two brothers didn‘t show up.
May 23: My Hammock
I have loved hammocks since I was a child. Yesterday I had a lazy day after many busy days and it was perfect hammock weather! I just lay there with the sun shining on my legs (my head was covered in shadows) and listened to some very talented songbirds. And of course I fell asleep for about an hour.
May 24: Family Magpie
A family of magpies has chosen our garden as territory for flight exercises of their five children. But they don’t like cats. So, everytime when our cats are in the garden, the magpie parents start making their typical noise. And this can be really loud. It seems even louder when there is no other noise. This happens at about 5 o’clock in the mornings, when our two tomcats come home from their night trip. So, we don’t need an alarm clock at the moment, and we stand up very early. Magpies are not the most liked birds I guess, but they can be really cute, too. Especially when one of their parents feeds them with some of the coconut which is hanging on our terrace. A few years ago, we had a tame magpie which even landed on my head. You can see a picture of this in my instagram posts.
May 25: New Creatures
This day I felt a bit like God’s apprentice. For the new header of my blog page, which is called “Die Kreaturen“ I created some new beings. This was so much fun that I neglected my other work the whole day long (and now will have to work on thursday, which is a holiday in Germany). I don’t know what kind of bird that is, maybe it has monkeypox.
May 26: A Trashbin for the Park
We live close to a public park. I really enjoy walking there, with or without our dog. Other people walk there, play park games, lay on the grass, practise yoga, play their electric organ, smoke joints or just celebrate something. Just a typical park. The only bad thing is that especially after a day with nice weather you find a lot of trash besides the benches where people sat to smoke, drink and eat. Usually, close to each bench there is a trashbin. With one exception, and exactly that bench is the favourite of those who produce the biggest amount of cans, bottles, packages and other waste. I said to the admininistration of our City, that a new trashbin just besides that bench would solve this problem. And what did they say? They said “You are right! We’ll install that bin.“ And so they did yesterday. Sometimes, it’s less effort to just speak to the people that to moan about something all day long.
May 27: Daddy’s Shirt
It’s Ascension of Christ, in Germany this is also Father’s day. Years ago it was a custom that groups of men went out in the morning with a case of beer on a handcart and get heavily drunk in a short period of time. In 2022 you see the young men in the morning carrying their babies in a sling and fetch some rolls for breakfast. I, too, prefer to be with my wife and children on that holiday. And they were really nice, gave me very pretty self-drawn cards, flowers and a perfect breakfast. I wore a shirt of my father, one of the few things of his legacy. It must have been at least 50 years ago when he bought it. The brand ist “Hobby Shirt“, what I find quite funny. Is it a shirt to wear while practising your hobby or is the hobby to wear the shirt? I think when the shirt was produced and marketed it became fashionable in Germany to use english words. They even invented some. The shirt with it’s colourful (at least 6 colours) plaid still looks quite nice after all that time.
May 28: Loveberry
A confused, uncomfortable and stressful day with struggles, arguments and lots of other things that nobody wants. Only at the end of the day, just before going to sleep, I took a strawberry from a bowl, looked at it with tired eyes and thought that sometimes we might receive signs to remind us what really counts.
May 29: Cheers to the Eifel
In the evening we had friends for a visit. We sat and ate and drank and in the end watched the champions league final. The beer we drank is not the famous Cologne beer “Kölsch“ but an ale from the Eifel, called “Eifeler Landbier“. The brewery is located at a very small river or stream in the town Gemünd. Last summer the stream, as many others there, became a flood and devastaded big parts of the whole region. Gemünd is one of the towns which was severely damaged. We visited it one month ago, which was 10 months after the flood, and still it looks deserted. None of the shops or hotels or restaurants in this former spa has opened yet. Even the brewery was destroyed so much that they couldn’t brew anymore. Now they opened again and the beer I think is made of the same water from that now peaceful looking stream.
May 30: Aline
I made a statistic about the drawing challenge (so far): 7 times I drew myself, 2 times our pets, 4 times our children, 3 times other people, 3 times it was food, 5 times birds, 1 time other animals, 2 times plants, 10 times other objects. There was something wrong with my drawings. There is something so important in my life and I didn’t draw it for more than 4 weeks: my wife! Fortunately she and I went for a walk in the park on sunday, unfortunately it began to rain. We tried to protect under a tree but became even more wet. The glasses of my wife became foggy, but we laughed and it was a beautiful moment.
May 31 A branch of a branch of a branch of a branch
Everytime when I was jogging in the park in the last weeks I smelled the strong scent of elder trees or bushes and each time I decided to draw an umbel one day in May. Now it was my last chance. I picked an umbel from a bush and saw that it was way to big to draw it on my 2 by 2 cm square. So I picked a smaller part, then an even smaller part of that and even the piece that I got in the end was very detailed. I drew it from the back side because there you can see how every little blossom is connected to each other. For me, this small piece of nature is a perfect example for the whole big thing. Everything is connected and even in the smallest details you see (and smell) a great beauty. What you can also see is that at some point drawing with a ballpen in a tiny square comes to its limits. When I finished my work I counted the tiny blossoms and it were exactly 31, one for every day in May, one for every drawing I did.