Coronation ceremony

Bratislava became a coronation city of Hungarian kings in times when Hungary lost its Coronation status due war with Turks. Old Bratislava became a meeting point of kingdoms, seats of kings and archbishops. In the St. Martin Cathedral in the years 1563 – 1830 10 kings, one ruling queen, and eight kings’ wives were crowned. The only ruling queen crowned was Maria Teresa from house of Habsburgs, she was crowned on the 25^th September 1563. The last coronation which took place in the city was on the September 1830 and it was Ferdinand V.

Nowadays traditions of coronations in Bratislava comes to life every year in the first weekend of September. Celebration processions through the streets but also night tournaments, puppet theatre shows, belly dancers and fire eaters offer an opportunity for fun in the streets of the old town. It is one of the biggest cultural events in Slovakia and helps to understand the historical coronation ceremony of Hungarian kings. According to historical documents in the Cathedral of St. Martin the ceremony of coronation itself is displayed written, during which the king is baptized and receives a coronation insignias: St Stephens Crown, sword, robe an apple and the staff. Then in the streets of the town the next parts of the ceremony take place: the knights of the golden spurs are knighted, an oath is given to the country, and the king rides up the coronation hill where he blesses all major compass points. In the framework of the coronation ceremony the representative of other king towns come to greet the king, workshops present their crafts, instead of water there is wine in the fountain, knights tournaments take place and a folk banquet takes place where there is offered roasted bull.

Today started 5th Coronation Ceremony of the Hungarian Queen Anna Tirol, wife of King Matthew II., crowned on the 25th of March 1613 in Bratislava. Despite of bad wheather it was spectacular performance. Ceremony was for the first time on main square , for the first time in Latin language and it last more than 1 hour !

King´s route from St.Martin Cathedral through the old town is marked .

Drawings done in daily sketchbook with Lamy pen and portable WN Cotman watercolor

Thailand seascape

Today is a grey, rainy day here and my thoughts are rovering along the beaches of sunny and hot Thailand. You are looking on my last week´s homework from Cathy´s class about creating textures in watercolor (btw. her book is really awesome !) .Here you can see scraping with toothpick, scratching with sharp blade knife, splattering with water and with paint, and salt , too. This last one is not too much to see, because it was a fine sea salt- you can see results on right side between sea water and sand . It is not easy depict water texture .

Kate´s class - Foliage

This picture is an last week exercise for class of Cathy Johnson .I don´t know , I still have tendency add some pen drawings there.

EDM #131: Draw a spray bottle

Done in Lamy Safari pen with Caran d´Ache Blue Night ink and sepia watercolor in daily sketchbook (not watercolor paper )

Two castles

I am taking wonderful watercolor class (of wonderful Cathy Johnson , why not you ? ) and for this ocassion here is coming time for better watercolors for me. On eBay I was succesful bidder for Winsor Newton watercolor Sketcher´s Pocket Box ( inside with 12 halfpanes of Cotman WC and neat retractable brush). It is so small I can take it really everywhere with me. So this sketch I made in my daily sketchbook from city beach on bank of river Dunaj. It was really quick and with this small pocket you are not a center of view for people all around.Of course, first I need to know these colors, but I am very satisfied with it.
Bratislava´s castle is done in Lamy pen and WN watercolors in my (no branding) sketchbook Here is another castle, this is castle hill in Alanya (Turkey) taken from Cleopatra beach, sketch from last holiday . Besides some scanner troubles ( no blue sea or sky) you can see that for example green is quite different from WinsonNewton . This sketch was done in Koh-I-Noor watercolor and Lamy pen.

Happy months

It is a long ago I last updated my blog. Even not updating, I still create, draw, paint or make a photo each day.Only this posting.... :-( Let´s say I take a blog holiday.
But these months was so exciting that some of the events must be mentioned.

For example gigantic monstrousus concert of the rock legend, music band GENESIS. This group started 40 years ago and now, after 15 still years, they are on stage again. Present new world tour „Turn It On Again“ are going through twelve European countries (starts from Helsinki to Rome) and I think from September people from USA and Canada can enjoy their music.
The concert in Prague was performed on Sazka ARENA 20th June 2007. Tony Banks, Phil Collins , Mike Rutherford, Chester Thompson and Daryl Steurmer was perfect on gigantic stage in front of 25 000 people standing here . The drawings I did are drawings as seen from two megascreens , I was standing maybe 70 meters far from stage.The colors are finished later at home.








During these two months I became happy winner !!! Normally I have no luck but this is so special I named it "East meets West" right here , in Bratislava. On the photo you can see two small parcels, one from free Moleskinerie giveaway (contains lovely ruled notebook Moleskine ), second one right from fabulous printmaker David Bull (contains small print "Fuji from Edo Castle" ). Both of these sites are definitelly worth of seeing and bookmarking !!



And holiday, of course. This year in Alanya,Turkey again. I made small travel sketchbook , for this moment I will publish only two pages , the rest next time.

Illustration Friday - Cars

Illustration Friday theme for this week was set to "Cars". There are probably thousands of various possible ideas, but for me thinking about cars this week always ends on island Malta, at memories on yellow buses I met and used .
Public bus transport on island Malta is an experience itself ! There are about 250 buses working on route transport throughout the island every day. And each one seems to be older than other ones, you can see it here. They are old several decades and delightful, now are painted all in white-orange-yellow. The main bus terminal is in Valletta , on place with huge "Triton" water fountain. Bus fare is cheap, you can buy tickets right from bus driver. But be prepare for hot bumpy and usually very crowded ride. The doors are always opened ( natural aircondition ? ) and very often jump in men from outside to check your ticket and again jump out.When you want to stop , you simply pull the cord across whole bus, thus ring the bell on the ceiling above driver. Buses are frequent and you can travel easily all around the island. Newer buses are ,of course, gradually being introduced but these pieces of history somewhat belongs to old Malta , they are a symbol for Malta and nobody really wants to do without them. I like it !
Old FORD EBY 537 done in smal Moleskine with watercolor , watercolor pencil , later with ink.

Nice guys packs their bones

This is one from the last dinosaur skeletons in shopping mall Aupark in Bratislava. Exhibition (I report about it 2nd of May) ends 20 of May and now is everything in process packing to boxes and moving to new place for exhibition.
This quick sketch is done in ink-liner and watercolors.

Queen in Bratislava

	Queen Beatrix, the first Dutch monarch to visit present-day Slovakia, arrived in Bratislava on Monday when starts a three-day state visit of our country. She met briefly on Monday with President of Slovakia Mr.Gašparovič and with Prime minister. But, as you see (on official photos SITA press agency) she cannot miss another important person - Čumil :-)

You can met Her Majesty Queen Beatrix on streets of Old City of Bratislava in Tuesday. I think the biggest joy was between japanese tourists - it seems like competition of who make the best and most photoshoots per second :-) . By the way , she is absolutely cute old lady in hat, with broad smile on her face. I think a lot of time if I could post this picture from my daily sketchbook. OK, my apologies to peoples of Netherland , but here it is . You donˇt meet Queen everyday, don´t you ?
Done with ink-liner 0.3 Kooh-I-Nor and watercolor.

Čumil

Done in small moleskine with Faber-Castel watercolor pencils and waterbrush.

There are several goofy statues here in Bratislava , each of them has their unique story. On the corner of streets Rybárska brána , Panská and Laurinská streets you can see man sticking his head out of a manhole. Meet Čumil . Author of this bronze statue is Viktor Hulík and here is from 26th Jul 1997 . From this time is one of the most photographed "citizen " of Bratislava because Bratislavians and tourists love him. Children love to abuse him by sitting on his head, adults love make photo with him or simply touch him for luck.

Great discussion have taken place as to what actually the man is up to..was he a sewer worker during the Second World War and had hid below ground to escape the bombs. With the war over, he’d climbed back out, thus explaining the satisfied grin on his face ? Or that Čumil was a guerrilla leader fighting against the Soviets ?

NO !

A close look at the statue reveals that instead of a helmet, a cap with a strap covers the head. It means Čumil is a normal boy observing beautiful girls (maybe up their skirts , who knows ) passing by, as Bratislava is also famous for an unusually high rate of beautiful girls per square kilometre.

Btw. Čumil is word from noun "čumieť" in Slovak language , in English it means man who is gazing, man who stare at something .

14th World Wide Sketchcrawl / Noc muzei a galerii

Today was a 14th Sketchcrawl Day and Night of Museums and Galeries , when you have all day free admit entry to all museums and galeries up to midnight. There was a plenty of exhibition, so no mater how, you can´t visit every thing. But I am sure now I will visit more frequently because there is plenty of ideas for drawings ( look for example excellent blog of Elizabeth Perry ) and there will be less people than today .
So, some exhibitions about nature of Slovakia...
...some about history of Slovakia......some about art (actually about baroque art in the Middle Europe ) ...
..some sketchbooks too :-) And evening Artsy Saturday - visit a new muzical , in this case
"The Three Musketeers "

Lotos

This lotos seed pod is sitting on my shelf for awhile that I don´t know from which place I bring it, probably from Thailand. It is really so grey and old and dry , like on the picture. That´s it why is so interesting .
Done in sepia ink and watercolor .

Hommage á Teri C

This is my small tiny Haworthia, placed on sunny kitchen window, preparing itself for blooming, I think. I got this small flower 2 months ago and only now I found courage to draw it . This small white "hairs" on "leaves" , they make me crazy ! The drawing is equally small like plant. And is dedicated to TeriC , which drawings of Cacti are so beautiful !
Done on Canson Esquise 90g paper with watercolor pencils.

Daily doodles

Daily sketches in my small sketchbook. Salmon bagel is done with inkliner and color markers on salmon bagel´s bag , now I am not sure it was a good idea. Memory stick is done with watercolors, inkliner is applicated afterward.

It´s a season now

Asparagus, ‘the queen of vegetables’, is highly prized for its delicate taste. The asparagus season usually runs from 1 May to 21 June, so now it is the right time for enjoy it.

Asparagus, a member of the lily family, originated in the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor , wild and cultivated varieties were popular with Greeks and Romans in the first century AD . Due delicate flavour and diuretic properties asparagus has been used as a culinary vegetable. The shoots are usually boiled or steamed and served with sauce hollandaise, melted butter or olive oil and Parmesan cheese . I like it grilled over charcoal grill , wrapped in slice of bacon.

Asparagus contains more folic acid than any other vegetable. Asparagus is also low in calories, no fat, no cholesterol, very low on sodium, but rich in fibre, potassium, thiamine, vitamins A, C, and B6, and glutathione, which is a powerful antioxidant. One of the richest sources of rutin, a drug which strengthens capillary walls. If you have never tried asparagus before, you should try it , you know : It´s a season now !

Drawing done in watercolor and ink-liner inside daily sketchbook.

435 years old

There are more than 100 water fountains here in Bratislava. The oldest is Roland Fountain (sometimes referred to as Maximilian Fountain ; in Slovak language Rolandova or Maximiliánova fontána) , located on Main Square. It belongs to the most famous fountain of Bratislava as well is known as a popular meeting point.


Its construction was ordered by Maximilian II Habsburg , the first Hungarian King crowned in Bratislava in 1563, to provide a public water supply in case of future fires because after his coronation was a big fire which ravaged the town. The fountain was built in 1572 in Austrian workshop of stonecutter Andreas Luttringer from Deutsch Altenburg. Diameter of the fountain basin is 9 m, pillar has 10.5 m and on the top is standing statue of knight in armor . It could be Roland, knight known as the protector of the city, yet the man atop the fountain is actually Maximillian II. Fountain´s current appearance is probably far from the original look, since it was modified and rebuilt several times. However its popularity remains unaltered and around this fountain are centred many legends.


Roland stands on his place, with his face turned towards the town hall. Once a year, precisely at the midnight at New Year Eve, he turns and bows in the direction of the former town hall, honoring the twelve councillors who in the past gave their lives in order to save the town.
He is also rumoured to come to life on Good Friday. On this occasion, in broad daylight he moves from his pedestal and woves his sword, Durandal, in all four directions, so that the town can feel that it still enjoys his protection. However, he can be seen only by a born and bred citizen of Bratislava, with a pure heart, who has never harmed anyone.
The Roland is done in watercolors and watercolor pencils in small watercolour moleskine