Montenegro: Sun, Soleil, Sunce – An Interview with Living Arts Canberra

We were delighted to sit down with Barb Robinson of Living Arts Canberra for an engaging conversation about our book Montenegro: Sun, Soleil, Sunce. This interview marked Barb’s first of 2025, and it was a pleasure to reflect on our artistic journey, travel experiences, and the deep connections that inspired this collaborative sketchbook.

Listen to the full interview below:

Barb Robinson (00:00):

It is so nice to have across my kitchen table for the first interview for 2025. I'll have to remember that that's where we are. Montenegro Sun, Soleil, Sunce.

Bobby Graham (00:11):

Perfectly pronounced Barb.

Barb Robinson (00:13):

Produced by Bobby Graham and Denis Graveleine, and it's called a sketchbook, and very beautiful object as well as beautiful contents. Welcome to both of you, to Bobby and to Denis.

Bobby Graham (00:27):

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Barb Robinson (00:29):

I'm intrigued by a lot of things about this book. Now, I should tell people it is in two languages, French and English. You don't have to be able to read French to enjoy the book. If you can, you'll get another dimension. And similarly, you don't even have to be able to read English to enjoy the book for the same reason. It's a collection of sketches made by Bobby and Denis when they visited Montenegro. Now my first question, Bobby, is why Montenegro? Why would you go to this little Balkan state, which is not well known? I had to look it up to find out some details of its history, which is fascinating. But why did you choose it?

Bobby Graham (01:05):

Well, my family is originally from Serbia, from Belgrade, and when my mother was in her late eighties, she used to go on holiday in Montenegro. She'd pop over from Australia to visit her family in Belgrade and then go to Montenegro. And she introduced me to Montenegro in 2008, which is when I went there for the first time and rented the house alongside the one that Denis and I stayed in this time. And the reason for that is because we couldn't get into the one where we stayed before for whatever reason. I forget at the time, and when my mother passed away, I took a journey to Montenegro again with my aunt. So it was kind of a sentimental voyage. And since that time, which was 2012, I've gone back, I think three or four times to Montenegro. And I really, really like it because as you say, it's a little unknown. It's out of the way. It's very beautiful. And the house that I rent now, which is that same one, is right on the beach. So when I was going again this year, I said to Denis with whom we were having lunch, how about you come to Montenegro with me? And he did. So that's how it came about.

Barb Robinson (02:11):

Well, I can see it's a pilgrimage for you and very close to the heart, therefore it connects you to your mother, to your heritage. But wonderful when we can have pilgrimages to beautiful places as well, because sometimes the places we pilgrimage to are not necessarily as beautiful as Montenegro appears to me now. Denis, perhaps you can tell the story of how you met because you went hardly knowing one another to spend a week together. It's a brave thing to do. Who knows whether you'll get on or you'll get under each other's skin. It's a brave but wonderful thing to be so spontaneous. How did you know one another before you went? Yeah,

Denis Graveleine (02:48):

So we met four years ago with a USK meeting. Urban Sketcher meeting. Urban Sketcher is groups of urban sketchers all over the world. So when I travel, I try to fund the urban sketcher group. And so I met the urban Sketchers Canberra four years ago, and then we decide to sketch together. That's how it's happened. And two years ago, we had a lunch with our family and Bobby say, oh, what about sketching together in Montenegro? And the funny thing is that I told to my wife, I say she is not serious, and Bobby answer in a perfect French, ‘Je suis serioux.’

Barb Robinson (03:38):

Well, it's wonderful to be asked to do something like that on the spur of the moment, and also wonderful to accept because saying yes to things often leads to places you would never expect. The interesting thing also for the reader, Denis and Bobby is that you were in the same places ostensibly looking at the same things, and yet your styles are so different, your perception is so different. And I think that's something that we draw from the book that goes well beyond the art and the words that human beings see things differently. And if only we would understand that perhaps there would be less conflict in the world. Tell me a little bit about the approach that you had when you went somewhere or sat in a cafe, sat on a terrace, whatever looked out at something, or how did you choose what to draw, what to paint?

Denis Graveleine (04:29):

Before that? I agreed to spend one week sketching or so because we don't have the same way to sketch and to draw. So from the beginning, our goal was to make a book. So it was easy because I draw in a different way than Bobby. So there is no conflict or challenge or things like that. It's also for the text. The text are not the translation, not at all. It's also different way to see the town, the buildings and so on. It's also like that when we sat in the front of a building or church, we already had a different way to draw, a way to see and to speak about.

Barb Robinson (05:16):

Yes, it's interesting that they're not direct translations of one another. They're each your own thoughts when you were in a place or when you were thinking about the people you'd met there. So there's this completely individual perception of where you were and of how you responded to it. Bobby, tell me a little bit about your style of art. When we go through the book, we know immediately which are yours and which are Denis, because you are so different from one another as indeed you are as people. Tell me how you approach an architectural drawing, for example.

Bobby Graham (05:51):

I think I'm more impulsive than Denis. He's a fabulous craftsman. His drawings are so beautiful and delicate and so precise. And mine almost probably, oh, well, I'll just launch into this and I'll start in the top corner and I'll work my way through the page. And I do like to pose myself my own challenge. And in this case, I used a book with quite unusual paper, so it was challenging for me because I had no idea how the medium would react. And I used a rag paper and I took some materials with me and tried them out, and sometimes the pen ran and sometimes it didn't. And I discovered that coloured pencils wouldn't work in it, so I had to change tack and used something else. So I used quite a strong, I think it was a garage that I used at the time. So my style is kind of impulsive. Throw yourself at it. Don't think too much, just more try. I don't even try. It's just be more expressive. I'm not a good draughts person, but I feel that I do capture in some way a sense of the place where I'm, as Denis says, our styles are so different that it's very obvious in the book, which are his and which are mine.

Barb Robinson (06:58):

There's no sense of competition. There's lovely stories in the book too. Denis, I loved your story about the water taxi, which never went anywhere. And in a way, when I was reading, I thought this is so much about the personality of the two of you that you could quite happily find a taxi that never seemed to go for one reason or there was always a reason that the taxi wasn't going and you made a positive out of it, that it just gave you more opportunity to sit and paint it. Yeah,

Denis Graveleine (07:25):

Well, I was waiting for the taxi on, well, for the sailor or for the man who can be on the taxi, on the water taxi,

Barb Robinson (07:34):

The captain.

Denis Graveleine (07:35):

And I say, well take time to draw the boat and to understand how the boat is with different benches and where the steering wheel is and so on. And it was nice to spend time there and maybe better than to be on the boat.

Barb Robinson (07:52):

And in the end, it never did go anywhere did, which I think is really wonderful.

Denis Graveleine (07:57):

We heard the boat was okay the week after us, of course, after you left. Of course. Of course.

Barb Robinson (08:04):

Now also because Bobby, you're very familiar with the place Denis. Was it your first time to go to Montenegro?

Denis Graveleine (08:11):

Yes, yes. Yeah, because from France, all those countries are very, I don't know the word difficult to understand. The story is very confusing for us, even if we read history, and it's always very difficult to understand even where are the borders and so on. So it was nice to know that those country are in peace. It was nice to go there and to take time to draw and to listen and to speak with people. So

Barb Robinson (08:41):

I read, which I didn't know before, that Montenegro was part of the original Yugoslavia and only became independent fairly recently. Really when we look at the history and is really identified with Europe, it belongs to all of the NATO, et cetera, et cetera. And it was described where I read as moving towards a market economy, and I thought, oh God, no. Maybe that's going to mean it won't be so beautiful as it appears to be a little seaside place as Bobby and Denis have drawn. Bobby, do you speak the language?

Bobby Graham (09:15):

Yes, I do. I speak Serbian. So that was beneficial for us, I guess, because we were able to chatter to people, the taxi driver, the boats people, and also at our house because the house that we rented or I rented the top floor and the bottom floor was rented by a friend of mine from Belgrade. She only spoke Serbian, Denis speaks French and English, but no Serbian. But we had lovely, lovely times together with them and we communicated through the drawing and through myself. So Denis would say something, then I'd translate it to my friend and she'd say something back and translated back to him. And I think the common language was, let's have a beer.

(09:56):

It was very warm there. It was just lovely to sit outside and have a beer and enjoy the courtyard and the children that played in the environment, the people that came and went. It was very much like a family holiday for us because I knew the house and I knew the people. But I just want to get back to one of your earlier questions, which was what was it like for us when we drew together? Well, it was delightful to go and sit at a cafe and we sat at quite a few different cafes, and we would sit at a table or two adjoining tables and we'd just look out at the view, the setting, the church, the buildings, whatever, and we draw. And as an urban sketcher, you usually draw for quite a long time, so it could be an hour, maybe two hours. And I remember Denis saying, they don't seem to mind that we do this. And we sat there for a long time and immersed ourselves in the environment wherever we were, and just had the most wonderful, peaceful, immersive time. And that was a fabulous experience. And also we didn't ever sit down and say, well, I'm going to draw this like this, and are you're going to draw it like that. We just sat there, looked at what was in front of us and drew it, and that was very delightful.

Barb Robinson (11:01):

I was also wondering, because you've got monasteries, churches, the sea with the boats, did you make any conscious choices about wanting to draw these particular places or was it serendipitous each day you'd kind of go where your feet took you? What about you Denis? Did you want to draw specific things and places? Was it a conscious decision?

Denis Graveleine (11:25):

We were just by the seaside, so it was very nice to go maybe in a city or in a monastery to draw something else than the seaside. Also, very interesting to draw monastery because it's new for them to have monastery. All the monastery were new or renew, but looks like they were maybe some years ago. So it was interesting for us to know that there was a renewing. And also lots of, we saw nuns. Nuns and priests, and lots of people in a little church, lots of people praying. So it was quite interesting to be there and see this.

Barb Robinson (12:09):

I'll stay with you, Denis, because one of the sections in the book is where you have thanked and acknowledged a lot of the people you came across. Tell me about some of those people ranging from very tiny with hand prints to older travellers from elsewhere.

Denis Graveleine (12:27):

It's also the way that your balance sketch likes. We like to draw outside to meet people, not only to draw or to have a nice picture or with the right colours, but also to speak with people and to know something more than only being tourist. So when we draw outside, we always meet people from the city and they speak with us. So the book was a way to thank them. They took time to speak with us and very friendly.

Barb Robinson (13:01):

Bobby, do you think that urban sketching then is sort of a bit of a secret weapon? It's a bit like having a dog when you go somewhere and you have a dog, a lot of people will talk to you who wouldn't talk to you if you didn't have a dog with you or a small child. It's kind of like an icebreaker in a way, is it?

Bobby Graham (13:15):

It's, yeah. It draws people to you, and it's less invasive for them than say, taking a photograph. They don't mind being drawn and being included in the drawing. And as Denis said, they're always curious and they form a circle around you or they'll peer over your shoulder or they'll ask you, what are you doing? Or Why are you doing that? And where are you from and why do you want to do this? So it is really all about immersing yourself in that environment and community, which is just marvellous. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing to do. And it does give us a lot of pleasure. And as I said at the house, we were there in a sort of a family environment, so we engaged with the little children that were staying there and with the older people as well. And it kind of gives you a licence to do things which you maybe wouldn't do otherwise. Sit on a pavement or you'll sit on a bench somewhere or somebody will offer you a seat. And one of the most, perhaps most unusual places that Denis sketched was inside a submarine. And that was quite an experience, I think, for him. And I think I'll hand it over to him and maybe he can tell you a little bit about

Barb Robinson (14:13):

That. Yeah, tell us about the yellow submarine.

Denis Graveleine (14:16):

Yes, I say it's drawing in a sketchbook. It's the best passport because people will speak with you suddenly and with no trouble. I was visiting a submarine, a museum submarine is now a museum, and there was a sign everywhere. No picture. No picture everywhere. So I asked the lady on charge of the museum, may I draw? And she say, oh yeah, you can draw and sit down on the command on the captain chair. So it was funny because what you said, people are okay when you are drawing, and sometimes they're not okay when you take picture. Drawing was natural for, yeah,

Barb Robinson (15:02):

It's a gentlest sort of entree into people's worlds. How did it start for you? I just want to finish knowing how you began urban sketching, each of you, I mean you’re artists with other practises and urban sketching is kind of a band of your practise. How did you start doing it? Bobby and then Denis?

Bobby Graham (15:22):

Well, I went to Belgrade and Montenegro in 2016 by myself, and I took a sketchbook with me at the time. I hadn't ever sketched before, hadn't drawn anything since school. And I thought, oh, this will be a good way of spending time when I'm on my own at the airport or sitting in restaurants or whatever. So that was actually my first experience of urban sketching without realising that I was doing it because it was location and travel sketching. And when I came back to Canberra, I thought, well, I'd really like to try and draw with other people or learn more about what I've done. And I discovered this organisation called Urban Sketchers, and I think that was 2018. And I went along to the first meeting, which was held at a winery outside Canberra. And they were all these lovely people, and they just sat there and they drew and they left me to draw on my own.

(16:08):

And then we got together at the end and everybody showed people what they were doing. And I thought, this is amazing. What a generous, open spirited sort of way to spend time with a group. So since that day, 2018, I've been with the urban sketchers in Canberra, sitting in unusual places for the last few years, every month. And the thing that I like about it is that I've learned so much about pens and paper and sketchbooks from watching other people do the same thing and asking them questions. And as Denis said, it's a very generous club in a sense that you don't pay to belong, but you belong to it automatically. And if I were to go to Paris this week, I would just let the Parisian Urban Sketchers know that I'm there and somebody will say, well, come and join us on Saturday. We are sketching here and here. So it's a lovely communal experience and it does enable you to teach, and it also gives you that confidence to sit outside in these wacky places and draw and not feel foolish.

Barb Robinson (17:11):

So you started it as this kind of a comfort blanket, and then it's become camaraderie.

Denis Graveleine (17:15):

True,

Barb Robinson (17:16):

True, true. Yeah.

Denis Graveleine (17:17):

Yeah. I was drawing painting I say in my corner alone, and then I discovered that urban sketching was a sport and there was teams and there were the national teams and so on. So that's how I improve my sketch, on my drawing skill. And it's very interesting because you learn from other, there's no teacher. It's a way also to draw more and more because you know that there is a community that will be interested in your drawing.

Barb Robinson (17:51):

What a wonderful thing should be. More of this in the world, in all sorts of fields. Shouldn't there? Now, this beautiful book, Montenegro: Sun, Soleil, Sunce, the sketchbook that Bobby and Denis have produced, where do we get it if we want to buy it, Bobby?

Bobby Graham (18:06):

Well, it's available from the Book Cow in Kingston, and it's available directly from my website. It's also available from Amazon and other online marketplaces.

Barb Robinson (18:15):

Okay. So your website for everybody is

Bobby Graham (18:18):

BGPublishers.com au

Barb Robinson (18:22):

A noble practise. It's how we get lots and lots of things into the world that might not have found their way, found the light of day through book publishing. Thank you both so much for being across the table with me today. It's been lovely talking to you. And I hope to see many more of these sketchbooks year in, year out, maybe different places, maybe not Montenegro, maybe somewhere else. Maybe Paris is next. Yeah,

Bobby Graham (18:45):

That would be lovely. Thank you so much, Barb. Okay.