In the afternoon I sat down on the stone steps and sketched the houses that were in front of me.
Sainte-Croix houses, 8″ x 6″ postcard on Arches Aquarelle 300gsm paper. March 2024
I was struck by how the afternoon sun cast shadows on that glass screen, centre left, and illuminated the little greenhouse-type roof on the house in the centre. These are solid Swiss houses, with heavy tiled roofs and properly operational shutters. Some of the metalwork, such as the guttering and the surroundings of the chimney stacks, is in actual copper. Even the downpipes are copper.
One tree was a fir tree and was opaque. The other tree was twigs, and was transparent.
Although it was spring, this is at 1200m, and it was cold. The deciduous trees are still bare. The hill is the background is Mont-de-Baulmes. Many of the trees up there are deciduous larch.
I painted this picture in watercolour-only. Usually I use pen. Here, I did a quick pencil sketch and then straight on with the colour. It was too cold to try to get any details or do any penmanship. The solid plainness of the houses seemed to demand flat colour washes. I deliberately left lines of white between the slabs of colour – the sun always catches edges.
Work in progress22 March 2024 16:30
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In the Swiss hotel there was much talk about the wind turbines. They are being constructed on a nearby hill. I could see them from a bench by the church.
Wind turbines above Sainte-Croix, Vaud 6:30pm, 16th August 2023. A5 Arches 300gsm NOT
People said, you should go up there and see them, you can get very close. So on Sunday afternoon, we visited the construction site. There are information placards and a visitor car-park. Plenty of local people were up there viewing the machinery. The general atmosphere was one of curiosity and admiration.
It was a Sunday afternoon family outing: Let’s go and see the wind turbine construction site…
The blades are huge. 43 m.
The enormous blades, ready to raise.The blades have serrated trailing edges
As a British person, I was surprised at the openness. As it was the weekend, the site had no workers. The fascinating machinery was separated from us by some notional fences. It was supervised only by a few CCTV cameras on a stand. Perhaps there were also hidden ones. As you see from the photos, we could get close, and walk freely around the crane. My Swiss companion was surprised at my surprise.
It was also remarkable how positive the feeling was amongst the sightseers. A local person said that in the past they had been opposed to the turbines, but now that construction was started, they could see how clean and organised it was. “It’s better than a nuclear power station!” they observed. There’s no immediate benefit for the local people: they do not get a reduction on their bills. “But it’s better for everyone.” I was told.
“Here we are building the first Wind Turbine park in the Canton of Vaud”. Note the line of cars to the right: local people have come to visit the construction site.
The next day, Monday, my host came rushing up to me as I returned from a walk. “Quick, look! They are raising…”. We found a vantage point. There, on the distant hill, the blades were being raised up the mast by the crane. They moved very slowly, but definitely, “like the hands of a watch” said my host. For that Swiss person, this engineering feat had become a source of local pride.
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I walked up the gorge from Vuiteboeuf to Sante-Croix. Half-way up I paused to sketch this amazing rock formation.
It was an ideal place to sketch, under the trees.
The rock formationSketching location at the foot of mossy rocks and trees.Information board
As I sketched, the silence was broken by thumps and scrapes behind me. A bear? A tree fall? A rock avalanche? No. A mountain bike rider descending the path at speed. These riders are skilful – they jump and bounce, and turn in the air like dancers.
I saw one in the distance as I navigated a narrow part of the path. Since there was a steep drop on the right hand side, I flattened myself against the rock to give them room. But there was no need. The rider brought their bike to a graceful halt, slipping sideways like an ice skater. They grinned as I greeted them. “Il faut du muscle” they said in response to my comment on the steepness of the path. Yes, you have to be strong. And have a sense of balance, good eyesight and rapid reaction times. And courage. After I passed, they backed up their bike and jumped on, to hurtle off down the slope.
My sketch took an hour. It’s on Arches 300gsm paper, with Daniel Smith watercolours. The colours I used were:
Permanent yellow deep
Serpentine genuine
Cobalt teal blue
Burnt Umber
Buff titanium
Perylene maroon
The pen drawing is with a fountain pen, Lamy Safari, with De Atramentis Document Black waterproof ink.
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Sketching is a way to fill those “waiting” times with creative activity.
..at the airport…..waiting for lunch…..before dinner…..before the others arrived……waiting for the food….
I had an A5 sketchbook with cartridge paper. This cartridge paper behaved differently from the watercolour paper I am used to. It was more suited to quick sketches.
It was hot weather. Outdoors the paint dried quickly. Here’s the hotel from the other side of the road, drawn very quickly, about 20 minutes.
Hôtel de France, Sainte-Croix 18 August 2023
I went to the swimming pool. On the way back I stopped to sketch the sloping hill and a house in the trees.
Here’s a view of the bar at the hotel.
Here’s a flip-through of the sketchbook. 20 seconds of silent video. [This video and the gallery beneath may not show on email or phones so if there’s a problem please see the web version of this post]
Sketchbook flip-through. Sketchbook from the Vintage Paper Company.
I’ve sketched in Switzerland before. Here are some other other drawings I’ve done in the same location:
Waiting in London City airport… Breakfast… Looking out of the window… Walking around… A rich cultural spectacle: Photographs absolutely not allowed, but sketching was OK. It was very crowded,…
Here is 23 rue du Petit-Montreux, Sainte-Croix, Vaud. I sketched this house after breakfast. The sun was bright and I rushed out into the crisp morning. It took me…
It was raining in Switzerland. Here is a sketch I did looking out of the window of the Hôtel de France, Sainte-Croix, Vaud. The building with the flags is…
I visited the Hôtel de France, Sainte-Croix in Vaud, Switzerland. Here is the hotel, from the street outside, just after I arrived. I had to wait in Geneva train…
The weather in the Jura mountains is changing. This is climate change, the residents tell me. Once, the snow came reliably every year, bringing skiers. Now, the snow is…
Here is a machine that was used to make music boxes: The machine is about 100 years old. It still works. It sits with its colleagues and companion machines…
This is the church. Drawn and coloured on location, about 1 degree C. That’s snow in the foreground. Then later, it was colder. Hotel de France, drawn from the…
This building is on the Rue des Rasses, in Sainte-Croix, Vaud, Switzerland. For maps, see end of this article. There is much that is interesting about this building: there…
Snowfield behind the church. Painted with melted snow as I forgot to bring water. All done standing up as everything was wet and cold. Snow blew from the roof…
Photographs absolutely not allowed, but sketching was OK. It was very crowded, and great fun to hear the expert yodleurs. They sung in French.
Sketching on the journey back to London. Passports were checked four times: at check-in, at border passport control, and again at the gate in Geneva (shown below), and again on arrival in the UK.
The friendly passport officer at Gate B32 kindly agreed to add his stamp to my picture. You see his blue rectangular contribution in the top right.
Sketching on the plane:
Sketching on a paper plate.
In between all this sketching I did some work…..and went walking in the snow.
Near Sainte-Croix, Vaud.
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Here is 23 rue du Petit-Montreux, Sainte-Croix, Vaud.
23 rue du Petit-Montreux, Sainte-Croix, Vaud 24 October 2021, 10″ x 7″ in Sketch book 11
I sketched this house after breakfast. The sun was bright and I rushed out into the crisp morning. It took me about one hour and 15 minutes outdoors, and then I completed it in my hotel room. The outside air temperature was 20 C.
A few pencil lines
Pen and ink
Pen and ink done
Work in progress on the colour
Looking east to the house
Perhaps I should draw the scene looking the other way too?
Work in progress in rue du Petit-Montreux
“…the ladder that goes up the chimney…”
I particularly admired the ladder that goes up the chimney. So practical.
The sky is Phthalo Blue Turquoise, with some Lavender. The roof is mostly Fired Gold Ochre. The house walls, and the road, are a mix of Phthalo Blue Turquoise and Perylene Maroon, with a bit of Transparent Brown Oxide and Buff Titanium. The shutters are a mix of Fired Gold Ochre and Perylene Maroon. The hedge is Sap Green with those other colours mixed in to make it darker.
Here are some maps:
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This building is on the Rue des Rasses, in Sainte-Croix, Vaud, Switzerland. For maps, see end of this article.
26 rue des Rasses, Sainte Croix, Vaud. Front entrance. 20 October 2021 in Sketchbook 11
There is much that is interesting about this building: there is the building itself, a 1930s marvel, there are the original occupiers, and there are the current occupiers.
The building was constructed in 1929-1930 as a factory for Reuge, the music-box makers. Reuge had already been operating for some 55 years by that time, starting with a pocket-watch shop in 1865. The factory operated for 85 years, until 2015, then they moved production to another site. Here is a picture of the factory fully operational, from a Reuge publication dated 2007 1
In June 2016, Reuge still owned the building, even though they’d moved their production out. They still used the wood-panelled showroom to demonstrate their music boxes. Here are some pictures from when I visited the empty building at that time:
Music box demonstration room
Former Reuge Factory, visit June 2016
Since around November 20193 the building has been occupied by a group called “le Baz”. They are a self-governing collective, who have created a “ZàB” in the former Reuge building. “ZàB”, their website2 explains, stands for “Zone libre à Bâtir”:
C’est une zone autogérée d’expérimentation, d’émancipation, de solidarité et de lutte, et pas un espace de consommation passive. Elle est ouverte à toutes et tous à toute heure décente. Et ce pour souffler, partager, apprendre ou transmettre de manière spontanée. Toute personne présente devrait pouvoir répondre à vos questionnements concernant le fonctionnement. Tout comme vous, elles ne sont ni responsables, ni programmateurices, ni animateurices, mais ni plus ni moins que les acteurices d’une création collective.
It is a self-organised space for experiment, emancipation, solidarity and struggle, and not a place for passive consumption. It is open to everybody, at any reasonable time. It’s where you can breath, share, learn or communicate at will. All the people here should be able to answer your questions about how it works. Just like you, they are not the managers, nor the schedulers, nor the facilitators, but no more and no less than the participants in a collaborative creation.
[My translation]
I took them at their word, and showed up at an “heure décent”, which as it happened was about midday. As I hesitated in front of the door, a young man asked if he could help me. I said yes, would it be possible to go in? He said yes of course, had I not read the notice on the door? I said I had. But he was already about his business, rushing ahead of me, and had left the door open. So I went in.
I walked around the empty spaces. It was all clean and organised. Someone had recently been working on the wall murals: there was a smell of paint. There are huge areas of blank wall and vast empty rooms. There is a “magasin gratuit” where you are invited to take what you need or bring goods to donate. A handwritten notice explains how it works.
I didn’t meet anybody.
On the way out, I did meet someone. This was a young woman, who smiled and asked if I was visiting: “Vous faites le tour?” I said yes I was. She recognised me, because she’d seen me drawing, three days previously. We chatted for a bit. She explained some of the history. The town had been opposed to their use of the site. Some people thought we were squatters, she said: “ils pensent qu’on fait le squatte”. But no, she said, we are not squatters. In principle, “no-one sleeps here the night”. And they have the permission of the owner. Well, they had the permission of the owner. But things have changed…. so the situation now is, well, “un peu ambigue”, a bit ambiguous.
She smiled. She liked it there. She said that it was surprising how little one needed, just “les un ou deux trucs” a few things needed for existence.
“And friends,” I suggested.
“Yes,” she agreed, “and friends.” She told me her name and asked me mine. “Come back,” she said, “any time. Boir un café.” And she set off down the slope, towards a young man waiting patiently below, by the collection of wooden outhouses.
Here is the picture I had been drawing when I first met the woman.
26 rue des Rasses, rear entrance (view from the South). 17th October 2021, 4pm. In Sketchbook 11
In this view you can see evidence of the current occupiers. They have built a fence, made of wooden pallets, on top of a concrete platform which is part of the original building. On the concrete wall are inscriptions in a flowing calligraphic script I did not recognise, and a large symbol in a roundel.
Here are some external views and work in progress on the drawings:
Window from inside, June 2016
Window from outside, October 2021
Building exterior, October 2021
Here are maps:
References:
Reuge, the Art of Mechanical Music, Secrets of the Reuge Manufacture, published by Reuge in 2007. Picture of the factory in the snow is from the frontispiece.
Website describing Le Baz, and the Zone libre à Bâtir: https://pantographe.info/ downloaded 22 Oct 2021
The local newspaper <<24 heures>> carries articles about how the current occupiers took over the buildings and disputes between the current occupiers and local residents. See for example the article by Frédéric Ravussin, 22.11.2019, 06h51. These newspapers are available on the marvellous digital resource: Scriptorium from the University of Lausanne.
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The weather in the Jura mountains is changing. This is climate change, the residents tell me. Once, the snow came reliably every year, bringing skiers. Now, the snow is unreliable. “It shouldn’t be like this,” they said, looking out at the slushy rain. This is February: high skiing season. “It should not be like this,” they say again, sadly.
Here is a sketch made looking out of the window into the rain and melting snow. The lady at the Post Office added the stamp.
Sainte-Croix, February 12th 2020, looking down the hill towards the station.
I made that picture with just watercolour: no pen.
The Hôtel de France celebrates the fine engineering expertise of the area with a collection of typewriters. There were several in the meeting room where we worked. Here is one of them.
Typewriter. The Post Office lady obliged with the stamp.
This was a busy visit. My arrival had been delayed by a storm, and so work was compressed into a few hours. My next sketching opportunity was while I waited for a lift to the station.
Here’s a view across Lake Geneva in the rain.
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Here is a machine that was used to make music boxes:
The machine is about 100 years old. It still works. It sits with its colleagues and companion machines in the workshop of Dr Wyss, in Sainte-Croix. Dr Wyss collected the ancient machines, as the music box industry declined in the region. They are now looked after in a dim and oily machine shop, in a semi-basement of an unremarkable building. Mr Théodore Hatt is their carer, curator and operator. I had the great privilege of spending some time in the workshop, quietly drawing, while Mr Hatt showed the collection to a visiting engineer from Germany.
The machines operate from huge and very dangerous-looking belts in the ceiling. At a certain point in his presentation, Mr Hatt sets all these belts in motion. They create a gentle rhythmic noise, rumbling down the length of the workshop. He connects different machines, driven by the belts. Each machine changes the noise slightly. His explanations, in German, come to me in harmony with the machine beats.
I drew the electroplating machine, and the drill:
Here are some work-in-progress photos, and a close-up of the cogwheel in the first picture:
On the way home, in Geneva airport, I drew the view:
From gate B32 Geneva airport
Birds
“Amidst runway fog a hawk circles and plummets. The crows are annoyed.”
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I had been travelling since 5am. So I just rested. I looked out of the hotel window. I saw chimney pots.
With the wind and snow in Switzerland, it’s worth a lot of effort on the part of the chimney pot designer to get it right. Clearly, though, much experimentation is required. Every one in this drawing is different.
Switzerland is the only place I know where copper is a construction material. The rest of us use it to make small domestic items, or jewellery. But here, the whole of the chimney pot stack with the cylindrical top, in the middle of the picture, is made of copper. Also copper is the guttering which runs across the middle foreground, and some of the down pipes.
Later, in a pause, I made another drawing, this time from the terrace of the Hôtel de France. This time I was tuned in to chimney pots. See the marvellous construction on the skyline! It is even furnished with a set of steps, so the chimney pot repairer is provided for. Or perhaps the chimney sweep.
Another day I searched for chimney pots again, since this was becoming a theme. Here is the view from the same place, looking a slightly different direction.
Here is the picture under construction.
The item in the middle of the base of the picture is a letter box. I posted a few postcards:
Pen and ink sketches are a good way to fill in the time waiting while travelling:
And I did some sketching at the breakfast table.
Breakfast room, Hôtel de France, 11th July 2019
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Jane Sketching 