Going To The Chapel

Back in my hometown there still is a monastery. I made this drawing as part of the exhibition that never took place in 1994. I thought it was a nice building to draw, especially because the village was very expending then. Many houses were build and it looked like the public garden surrounding the place had to make place for a new road and parking places. Luckily that plan never worked out.
During my childhood days I remember seeing nuns walking in our village. My father always used to say: "A nun on the square, brings rain in the air". Of course this was a joke, but sometimes he was right and the day after we saw a nun it started to rain!
Years later my father was frequently asked to play the organ in the monastery's chapel, or, as he sometimes called it: "he had to play with the nuns". A bit naughty, my father isn't he? I remember one day, when I was already adolescent, the organ in the chapel was out of order due to maintenance. My father asked me to help bring in a wooden pipe-organ, owned by a fellow organplayer in our village who was willingly enough to lend out his very expensive pipe-organ for free. All for the good cause, of course. His only demand was that the organ was transported by me. Why, I don't know, I guess because I had a big stationcar at that time. Anyway, everything went well, until we had to bring in the organ into the chapel and my hand got stuck between the organ and the posting of the door. Before I knew it I said something very inappropriate at that time and place and I still can remember the look on the face of the nun who was accompanying us. I'm still very sorry, sister.

The Scale Of Things

Most older buildings and houses are much more fun to draw than newer ones. Perhaps because the scale of older buildings are mostly more 'human'. Except maybe in first sight for religious buildings, like cathedrals, churches and The Haya Sofia. But just look at this monastery in Istria. Although it's much bigger than the houses surrounding it, it still has this human-like proportionary in it's arches and squares. Even the tower don't look disproportional. Not that the builders wanted it that way, but purely because it was than technically impossible to build a bigger tower. Perhaps that's a good thought in these uncertain economical times: keep things in proportion, keep a human pace.