Rondane Sketching

In June we went to Rondane, a National Park in Norway. Although June, it wasn't quite summer up there, although the valleys were noticeably warmer than the mountains which still had a decent amount of snow when we first sighted them at the start of the week.

Thomas had a bad cold, donated by someone from work two days before we left, so it was a bit like being in the twilight zone, up on the side of a mountain in a hytte, without transport other than Shanks pony, and not really feeling much in the mood for that either!

However I did make a few sketches of the place which I thought I'd post up here.

It's interesting to make sketches as well as photographs when you go on holiday. I'm not decrying photos by any means, but the level of intimacy you might gain from spending up to 2 hours sketching something and trying to work out spacial relationships, does give a different feel for me, as I look back on the holiday while writing these few words.

This was an early sketch of the view from the hytte we stayed in, in the foothills just before where the official border of the National Park lay. It didn't turn out anything like the view I had in my minds eye, but looking at it now, the water marks at the bottom remind me very much of all the mist and rain in the valley...

This was just done in pencil on some really nice -and cheap! - cartridge paper. It's a view straight into the mouth of the Rondane, capturing only some of the broad sweep of the range that you can see from here. We'd gone on a little walk on the recommendation of a guy we met and the view was just fabulous, across lakes into the heart of the mountains, or at least the promise of them!

When we'd been to a similar point before to have a look we couldn't see the peaks, just white mist which blanketed  the views. We had, however, had the tease of a view on our journey up to the hytte, but it was about 3 or 4 days until it decided to show itself. It is a popular view with the local hotel having a version in paint, and actually now I recall, the hytte had it's own version too!

 Looking over the valley later in the week we determined that one of the hills across from us was called Svartkampen, and when we were lucky enough that the weather cleared we could see over to the Jotunheim range, which Andrew was to venture into the following weekend. Knowing this, we were watchful of the snow cover; when the cloud lifted we could see broad sweeps of snow all over the mountains beyond this ridge, all looking pretty arctic! Andrew related his story here; it's well worth a read!

Closer and closer to 'home', one of the views that captured me, and made me sign the theme tune to Heidi in my head for a good 5 days, was the view down the hill to an old barn. The hytte that we were staying in was part of a 200 year old farm; there was another hytte with two sheds between us and it, as well as this barn further down the hill in the middle of a field. The field was steep, surrounded by pines, but the spring grass was lush and flowers were waking up around the hedges / scrub. The barn stood out for me though and finally I sketched it. Thomas remarked that it reminded him of the wild west, and I can see what he means; it was very rustic, built in traditional log cabin style - which you still see much evidence of!

Curiously, the view along the road was especially seductive for me (I can imagine people saying, "What, you'd rather sketch a road than the mountains!"). I liked the mystery of the road curving, rising and then falling out of sight into the darkness of age old spruce and fur trees, making me daydream about other universes and worm holes and such (I watch too much sci-fi!). I loved sketching this and was completely enveloped for a couple of hours. The fence posts were more numerous than I've included, although they formed a lovely shape themselves, but including them could have foreshortened the view and 'stopped' the viewer's eyes from roaming. If I sketched it again I might leave them out altogether...

Finally, this was my last sketch from the holiday, done as we were waiting for the bus to take us on a long drive back to Oslo. We were at the 'Sinclair Hotel', the plaque illustrated below marking 400 years since a war with the Scots! It was just a quick, 20 minute sketch but I was happy enough with the result. Certainly all the sketches I did on holiday (I think) improved over time, and something of a style started to emerge; rather illustrative, but I quite like that; it reminds me of old paperbacks I used to read as a kid, with lovely line drawings.

One of the things I've taken from this is how portable a simple set of basic watercolour pencils and 2, 2B pencils are. A brush with a bit of water from a bottle or cup to smear the colour around if wanted, a sketch pad that fits in a small bag (I really like my Z-Packs Multipack!) and you're away. Plus, the memories of the place remain very vivid for me; the place itself and the feelings of exploration and discovery, in this case without so much use of my legs! Reviewing the sketches now, I definitely want to explore more pencil work of mountains; but until I'm back in the bigger hills I'm looking forward to sketching more around Oslo, maybe even the city itself, as well as the marka and surrounds.