Charming Sweden - part 02

I'm continuing my previous post about our trip to Sweden where I promised to post sketches from our trips to Stockholm. Stockholm is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful cities in the world: located on the Archipelago, with numerous bridges connecting different parts of the city, drowning in green and, of course, with its beautiful streets - products of Sweden's famous architecture and design! By the way, the influence of Swedish design, with its simplicity, minimalism and functionality, strong colors, and combination of preserving the past while using revolutionary new ideas,  was felt everywhere, in every tiny peripheral village.

As our cottage was half an hour drive from Stockholm, we could combine our explorations of nature with urban trips. 

Royal Guard changing near the Palace

Sketching together with Ru - sketcher from Malaysia travelling in Europe, at Gamla Stan

Stockholm has great coffee shops!

at Skansen museum - traveling to the past

at Trivoli Grona Lund - even an amusements park is charming in Stockholm!

trying out my new markers

Fashion Night at the streets - lot of young people gathering together

waiting for our bout tour to start

having lunch at Friday's at Kungstradgarden

What can I say to sum up? I'm totally in love with Sweden and I hope it wasn't my last trip there. 

You can find my entire Swedish sketchbook on Flickr.

Sketching in Sarona

Few days ago we passed through Sarona - recently renovated a 140-year-old Templer colony in the heart of modern Tel Aviv. The original colonist's houses turned into a part of contemporary lifestyle center, with shops, restaurants, playgrounds for children and a lot of green spaces. So nice to see such a successful project of reserving the past and combining it in the modern life! And it's obviously very good place for sketching!

picnics on the grass

playground - keeps children busy 

For sure place to come back and sketch more!

All the square's a stage

Our last Sketchcrawl took a place at Magen Daviv Square - very busy point in Tel Aviv, which turns at Friday mornings to one of the best shows in the city! People that rush to shop at the Carmel Market, or to hang around at artist's market Nahalat Benyamin, or to drink a cup of coffee at Shenkin street, cross the square, which surrounded by buildings in various architecture styles. Street performers, beggars, orthodox Jews offering to put tefillin, armed policemen - everything mixed into one never ending show, bizarre and real simultaneously...
All that urban sketcher need to do at that place - is to sit down, to observe, and to try to capture the stories as fast as he can.

It was so fun, as always, to meet our constantly growing sketchers group, to chat, to share, to get some inspiration!

Jaffa - inside and outside.

Here are two sketches that I did today in Jaffa.
First one - at "Puah" - trendy coffee shop at Flea Market, there is always busy inside.

Second one - at one of Jaffa's streets. This colorful house captured my attention and I stopped my car on my way home to sketch it.

Jaffa is a perfect place for sketchers - you can find stories everywhere!

Above Jaffa streets

 

These two sketches made from a balcony in old Jaffa. I'm in love with Jaffa and its streets, flowing like a streams into the horizon. I think I can observe, watch and listen for a hours - to mix of languages, colors and sounds. Unfortunately, my time is always limited. Hope to be there back again and to sketch more.

Amazing Thailand - part 1 - the islands

I'm back from our family vacation to Thailand, my first visit to the Far East, and I'm totally charmed! Everything's very different there, even for me , living at the Middle East for the last 20 years. If I were needed to use graphic designer's terminology,  I would say that this place got more contrasts and more saturation. There are most beautiful, calm, white-sand and turquoise-water beaches and busy, super-crowded streets, full of colors, smells and sounds. There are modern luxurious buildings and infrastructures, and people living in primitive sheds, as they used to live ages before. I know, two and a half weeks isn't enough to understand anything, but it's enough to charm me and to make me want to come back.
I'm not so good with words, lucky I have my Thai sketchbook to share with you, which I hope will show a bit this wonderful journey. I wish I could sketch all the time, unfortunately, I could mostly sketch at waiting times, but I'm happy with what I have.
We've spend two week on  Koh Samui and Koh Phangan islands, enjoying its beaches and travelling across them a bit. Here are some sketches from beautiful beaches :

and busy streets in the villages of the islands:

and, of course, some food-related sketches:

At the end of the trip we spent 4 days in Bankok, but I'll tell about it in the next post. Stay tuned!
Meanwhile you can see my entire Thai sketchbook on flickr.

Urban scenes

Some recent sketches capturing typical urban scenes.

corner in Tel Aviv

people waiting for bus