Luxembourg is a city that I knew for a long time only from passing through. In the meantime, I have gotten to know the city a bit better and I am always amazed by the mixture of different languages, the combination of modernity and tradition, city and nature, “Ville haute” and “Ville basse” and the countless small details in the cityscape.
The lower part of the town, the “Grund”, where the Petruss flows into the Alzette, is particularly beautiful. On the bank of the Alzette is the statue of Melusina, sculpted by Luxembourg artist Serge Ecker. The mermaid Melusina was the wife of Count Siegfried of Luxembourg and is part of the founding myth of the city of Luxembourg. The couple, who had met on the banks of the Alzette River, lived happily together here for many years and the Count accepted that his wife should retire once a week and not be disturbed. In time, however, he became suspicious, watched her secretly, and finally discovered that his wife was a mermaid, whereupon she disappeared forever.
I like to walk around the city looking at facades, signs, lettering and decorations on doors and gates. I have a particular soft spot for the wrought iron decorations on doors, as you often find in this region. On the gate of a house near the train station, I discovered a small wrought iron work of art that particularly fascinated me and immediately reminded me of a beautiful song by Michel Polnareff – “L’Homme qui pleurait des larmes de verre”. (A particularly beautiful version of this song can be found on Youtube). I traced the wrought iron pattern on my tablet when I returned. It’s an incredibly calming activity, and afterwards you can print out the drawings as coloring pages. Someday I’m going to put together a whole coloring book like this. 🙂
A special highlight of the stay in Luxembourg was the visit to the “Villa Vauban”, where I consciously saw one of Niki de Saint Phalle’s “Nana “s for the first time. Niki de Saint Phalle is an artist I admire very much and I love the positive, lively and joyful femininity that her Nanas exude.
Back home, I put some of my impressions of the short vacation into a sketchnote. I started sketching more digitally during the summer, and the course “Digital Sketchnoting” on “Verbal to Visual” was a great help. In the meantime, I’ve gotten pretty good at using the Concepts app, and vacation impressions provided a good practice area for experimenting with colors, lines, and composition. I also specifically tried to add myself as a small character in the sketchnote to make everything a bit more “human” and personal. 🙂
And this is what my stay in Luxembourg looks like then – summarized on a digital A4 sheet:
