A peaceful garden

I received this gorgeous card from Pat on my arrival home from my recent trip. She says” this is a garden I designed. I had a chance to visit with the owner and sketch while she took a phone call.It really loos great and sitting there was just what I needed to have a few moments alone with nature. Ah! Isn’t that exactly what this card expresses?... The lovely tranquillity and rest of sitting in a beautiful garden. As someone who never uses pencil and is addicted to colour, I really love the way that this simple pencil sketch tells us so much about the garden that Pat was in. I am always constantly amazed by all the things that my sketchercise friends do as well as there artwork– including designing gardens for friends! Thanks Pat – your card made my day!

A Winter Postcard from Germany for winter in Sydney

I received my June card from Albrecht a little early....but I put it away till it was June. Now Albrecht’s beautiful actually relates better to what we are experiencing here in Sydney..although we have blue skies and sun, (no snow!) and a fresh 15C (that is cold for us!!). I can feel the longing for spring in the black and white pen sketch with the colours below....just one touch of of spring green on the right hand end! Because we only have a few deciduous trees (introduced species – all native gum trees are evergreen) we always have plenty of green around.

I really love both the front and the back of the card- more lovely sketches and some great stamps too! - thanks Albrecht for a truly beautiful card

Spring and a new view from a Handschusheimer garden

Garden in Handschusheimer - finally Spring!

Albrecht has sent me a splash of Spring with this vibrant yellow plant growing in a garden in Handschusheimer - just north of Heidelburg.  It looks very much like forsythia to me and is a real tonic for the eyes.

On the reverse is another sketch and a little map which I found to be absolutely fascinating as I unpicked it but by bit.  This is what Albrecht says (I've added in the links to the places!)

The view from the garden overleaf (over the campus of the university of Heidelburg)

This is a historic moment!  One of the cooling towers of the Nuclear Power Plant at Philipsburg doesn't smoke anymore!  Yesterday one unit has beeen shut down in response to the nuclear problems in Japan.  Finally!  From where we live the distance is only 35km!(21 miles)

Then he has annotated the little map in the bottom left to highlight:

• the Romanesque cathedral Dom Speyer (Speyer Cathedral) 1025-1106 by the River Rhine.  I looked it up and it's been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Speyer Cathedral, a basilica with four towers and two domes, was founded by Conrad II in 1030 and remodelled at the end of the 11th century. It is one of the most important Romanesque monuments from the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The cathedral was the burial place of the German emperors for almost 300 years.
UNESCO

• a place where there are lots of hanging willow trees in a reserve (on what looks like an ox-bow lake) - and we already know how much Albrecht likes willows!
• an area where there are many natural reserves (nature reserves?) - so I guess these are places Albrecht likes to go to sketch.

Lots of information about Heidelburg

I looked up all the places on Google Maps - like I always do - and was amazed to see the shape of the snaking River Rhine and all the old oxbow lakes it created prior to being channelled. These are so very evident from the satellite view and reminds us of the power of inland waterways to change the landscape over time.

Springtime at Heidelberg Castle from Albrecht for Desiree!

I couldn't wait to share my amazement as I opened my mailbox to see such a large and perfectly traveled postcard from Albrecht in Germany! It was if he had sketched it during an outing and then cut it from his sketchbook and dropped it into MY mailbox. The corners are not even damaged. The front of the card is the most amazing graphite/pencil sketch somewhat reminiscent of an old European postcard you might have received before color was available, done by one of the masters of the time. The tiniest, most graceful lines make his view of Heidelberg Castle beckon me to visit!  I love the mature tree line that seems to frame in the castle. Then, like a bonus gift I turned the card over to see a beautiful watercolor and pen sketch of the oldest care house in the world built by Carl Benz in 1907 in Ladenburg, very close to Heidelberg. He goes on to say that Ladenburg itself might be the oldest city on the right bank of the Rhine.5000 years old. He also says that is the beginning of spring, finally! It is warm enough to sit here for awhile.

Thank you so much Albrecht for my wonderful card, it gives me a glimpse into your world! I also just love all the stamps that arrived, nicely canceled in the middle as to not ruin anything about this perfect card!