Sketchwalk with Jane's Walk.

Yesterday our group joined the Jane's Walk events. Actually, our usual sketchcrawl format fits the concept of Jane's walks perfectly. As it described on its official page - "Jane’s Walk is movement of free, citizen-led walking conversations..." We also do "citizen-led walking conversations", our conversations are our sketches. The process of walking, loitering without any purpose is a good beginning for finding a spot for sketching. Looking at everyday with eyes of a tourist is a must point for finding interesting story.

Face to Face! Urban Portraits That Tell Stories

I'm happy and excited to invite you to my workshop, which will focus on what I love the most - sketching people, and particularly - in portraits and how tell the story through a human face.

Date:
April 27, 2018

10:00 AM - 1:30 PM

Workshop location: 

Tel Aviv, Israel. (exact location TBA)

Space is limited: contact ultramarin71[at]gmail.com to make a reservation and arrange payment.

Maximum number of participants: 15

Skill level: Suitable for all ability levels.

"Faces are the most interesting things we see; other people fascinate me, and the most interesting aspect of other people - the point where we go inside them - is in the face. It tells all." - David Hockney

For me there is no more interesting subject than sketching people, and of course the most fascinating part is - their faces. When I can't pull out my sketchbook, I catch myself sketching with my eyes - watching the celebration of the human faces that constant surrounds us - men and women, adults and children, faces in all shapes and colors - talking, laughing, crying, telling us about themselves in all sorts of ways.

In this workshop we'll practice drawing portraits, but not in a traditional academic approach.

By doing series of fun and freeing up exercises we will learn:

·         to overcome the fear of drawing faces

·         to free up from automatic approaches and selections

·         to discover what is the essence of "likeness" in portraiture - how to get the real, profound likeness, and not only the external one

·         not to mechanically copy  reality , but to observe the essentials from the artistic point of view, and to sacrifice the secondary

·         to adopt new approaches and understandings

·         to connect to the emotional side of drawing

·         to strengthen hand-eye coordination

·         to improve the ability of observation

·         to enjoy the process without thinking about the result

·         to see personality and story in each character

·         to tell the story with the portrait

Schedule

Meet and greet - 15 minutes

Exercises, 3 sessions -  30 minutes - 1 hour duration each

Final conclusion - sharing our work and insights - 15 minutes

1. Warming-up  duels

Participants will divide into pairs and draw each other in three different exercises:

1.     Eye-hand connection

·         Blind contour - draw without looking at the paper.

·         From memory - draw without looking at the model

2.     Exaggeration (caricature)

·         Strengthen essentials and exaggerate

3.     Capture emotions

·         Simultaneous sketching - look at each other expressing certain emotions.

Finally, we will share the portraits and discuss what each exercise contributes.

 2. Going out!

After the warm-up, we will sketch fast portraits of people passing by on location.

We'll give a title to each portrait. The title can show what we think about the character or what she/he looks like.

We'll try to apply what we've learned in the previous exercises and pay attention to hand-eye coordination, capture the expressions of emotions and strengthen the essential and what is authentic in each character we sketch.

At the end of the section, participants will display as many portraits as they made in various approaches and will share their feelings during exercise.

 3. Telling a story

We'll tell visual stories based on a portrait of a stranger from observation.

The sketch can include the full figure drawing, but the focus should be on his/her face.

Besides creating an external likeness, we will try to transfer the character's personality and our relation to it. We'll build our subjective story.

At the end of the session participants will introduce their stories and share experiences.

Supply list:

·         A small sketchbook (~A5 size) from chip paper and pages you can tear out

or

·         A package of chip A5 or A4 sheets and a clipboard.

·         Tools you like for line drawing: pencil, pen, etc...

·         Tools you like for shape drawing: wide marker, paint brush, pastels, etc...

·         Bigger sketchbook of quality paper for the last exercise.

·         Your favorite tools for the last exercise.

·         Courage and good mood :)

Workshop cost

30,00€  (120 NIS)

Registration

ultramarin71@gmail.com

Gouache in Jaffa again

I'm in Jaffa again, having some sketching time with my friend Nathan. We're looking for the perfect spot, were we can combine drinking coffee and sketching. When we pass near Dr. Narghile shop, the decision comes to us simultaneously. We sat down in front of the shop on the heavy old chairs padded with red and black stripped cloth. I'm starting to sketch three men smoking narghile near me, but they're taking out their wallets and paying - what a pity! I need to wait for a new victim. It comes immediately - young bearded guy, looking for some calm moments and the last rays of the spring sun.

My second sketch - glance to the opposite side, to the busy junction with Jeffet street. There is so much going on all the time - tourists, locals, Arabs, Jews... looks like everybody have enough place and understand each other in different languages. 

I'm looking for the spot for the another sketch, decide to sketch the view just opposite me. It looks boring, big motorcycle is blocking my view, but I want to find a story in what I see. Suddenly interesting couple entering to my frame. Big blond woman wearing long black dress with a big split and red high heel shoes and red bag which complete the look. "Please, stay here for a while!" - I'm whispering. And what a gift - looks like the woman asking her man to take a photo of her, they are staying there for a few minuets, talking one to another and looking for a nice spot, finally leaving the place without taking a picture. But I got my few minuets to add them to my sketch and have the story I looked for!

I decide to do my last sketch inside my new sketchbook, which has horizontal panoramic format. Asian guy, obviously tourist, sitting down near us and ordering narghile. It turns out that the guy is from Hong Kong and he's narghile lover, have one at his home. Everything is global now ;)

Few hours passed like a one minute. Street is full of stories, all you need is to sit down in one place enough time, and all the stories will come to you :)

Friday morning at the Greek Market in Jaffa

Friday morning we meet at the Greek Market in Jaffa for the sketchcrawl. It was perfect spring weather, little by little narrow streets started to become full by merchants and buyers.
Here every merchant feels like an owner of his street. At least Arik, who manages used bicycles shop, feels as a king of his corner. He yells on his workers, bargain with clients, arguing with competitors, chatting with passers by. He was very proud to be our "model". "In real life I'm ugly! Draw me young and beautiful!" - asked Arik the wish of the most of models ;)

Later I sit down to drink a coffee at one of the coffee shops, full of models as well.

Meeting Nefertiti at Tel Aviv

Urban sketcher always attracts people. It's easy to start conversation with someone sitting at the middle of the street and drawing his surrounding. It can be just a few words, someone would drop while passing by, or it can start real conversation and sometimes connection.

Last time I met my friend and fellow sketcher Nathan at the "Congress Bazel" bar, our sketching meetings almost always accompanied by some food ;) After finishing plate with hummus and shawarma we had a perfect mood for sketching customers of this very typical Tel-Avian place.

Suddenly, colorful woman with dreadlocks designed into a tall tower on her head approached our table and started to talk to us. After a while, he and her husband passed to seat with us and we continued chatting as an old friends and sketching them, of course! She told us the she's also an artist (sure!), she's painting on a flour kind of oriental carpets (she showed us pictures). She also communicates with spirits and ghosts (of course!), if we need once. They live in kibbutz and are inviting us to come and to be their guests whenever we want. From the first glance Etti (that's her name) reminded me the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, because of her hair style. "Don't I look like Nefertiti?" - she asked me while I was drawing her. 

Sketching really opens a gateway the people's hearts.

Stories from the market

Carmel Market in Tel Aviv is always full of stories - you need just to be quick enough to put them on the paper.

This market seller asked me to draw him and was very surprised when I agreed. "I'm 40 years at the market, we had here photographers and reporters that came to interview us, but nobody never came here to draw us!"

The day of sketching always ends with a good meal!

Memories from BCN Symposium - part1

All good things eventually come to an end... After months of preparations and expectations, it took only three days of an explosion of senses and now we have all come back to different parts of the world. We back to our jobs and our families, our routines. But nothing can stop us from taking out our sketchbooks every day, and for one tiny moment we all feel connected through simple magic of sharing the same passion of sketching which bonds us together again and again.

I'll try to upload here little by little my impressions from the 4th international Urban Sketching Symposium.

First of all I want to say a big THANK YOU to all the organizers and volunteers for their amazing work and sleepless nights preparing this event!

Being this time one of the instructors, I felt very excited and a bit anxious. I was lucky to be instructing together with my friend Ea Ejersbo, she calmed me down and our energies were well balanced.

It was a really great experience!

I'm so happy that participants took risks and moved out of their "security zones", freed themselves and weren't afraid to make "bad" sketches. They  successfully "hunted' the "heroes' of their stories, composed them in their sketchbooks, using well the spread and white spaces, and went wild with watercolors and watercolor pencils putting it all together!  At the end their sketchbooks were full of great stories from colorful La Boqueria! 

Here are some of the sketches from La Boqueria I managed to make:

Indeed, teaching is the best way of learning. When you're trying to describe your approaches and methods, you can finally understand yourself a bit :-)

Stay tuned, it will be continued!