It’s not like us to transport our bottoms to one destination and stay there for the whole holiday. Nevertheless this year we settled for 3 weeks in a small village on the Croatia coast and it was blissful… amazing family time and a lot of inspiration for watercolors and ink sketches!

Everyday looked like this: walk with our dog Chrupka to the only coffee shop in the village, morning swim and breakfast before kids wake up, morning swim with kids, second breakfast, siesta on the shaded balcony…afternoon climbing or swim, dinner at the local restaurant nr1 or nr2…sometimes an evening swim and a schnapps in a local bar …

ink pen sketches from my travel diary

Over the years, a holiday sketchbook nearly replaced my need to take good photos (I used to love my camera!). Now taking photos is mostly a ‘middle man’ between beautiful/interesting moments and later drawings in sketchbook. Sketching live sounds great but on holidays it doesn’t happen often. My first priority is to have a great time with my family, while sketchbooking happens in between. It’s usually early morning the next day, when i look through my photos and decide what to draw.

ready, steady, go!

Vinjerac

gossiping on the beach

gossiping in the water

labrador Molly greeting us from her balcony

view from the local cafe

tasty treats

macro view of Vinjerac

‘I will help you cross the road Mr Turtle’

Buba – the local ‘mascott’

Chrupka and Buba

local cafe – best place to hang out in the morning

clilmbing in Paklenica

mountains – the more you look, the more you see

snorkelling with a view

at the end of the day in Starigrad

watercolour sketches during long siesta hours...

When it’s nearly 40 degrees celcius outside… it’s precious to have a shaded balcony with a breeze from the sea, a sofa and a big table, where you spend 3-4 hours a day hiding from the strongest sun! It’s very easy to get borred, so even my teenagers started to paint watercolours with me. It’s good I brought a lot of paper with me!

view at Velebit Mountains from our balcony

Chrup is ‘chillin’

dog’s freedom in Vinjerac

mountain layers in Paklenica

view from the beach

another view from the beach

Oh and here is a few chosen sketches from our road trip to Croatia and back. There is many versions of road trip from Copenhagen to Vinjerac and lots of wonderful places to see on the way.