Porto USk Symposium - part V (Lisbon)

Last post about my Portugal trip dedicated to my love - Lisbon!
Since the first Urban Sketchers Symposium I attended was in Lisbon, streets of Lisbon will always be connected for me to the sketches I did and sketchers I met there for the first time. Discovering this wonderful community 7 years ago for the first time in real, not online, was amazing revelation! I visited this beautiful city a few years later, when I was invited by the local branch of USk to give a workshop, so I had another opportunity to know the city better, and to add more sketchers to my Lisbon collection.
So now it was like visiting an old friend - exiting, nostalgic, full of emotions.
This time I came there with my husband, who came to Lisbon for the first time, so I was kind of a guide for him :)
We strolled the streets a lot, and sometimes I just wanted to be there, without sketching. Some places that looked to me too iconic were the most difficult for me for sketching, as for example, the Belem  district, with all its touristic sites, where I did no sketch. From the other hand, there are places I sketched during my previous visits, and I wanted to make another take on the same location.

Following sketches were done during our last day in Lisbon, when we joined to sketching tour to anti-touristic places leaded by Mário Linhares. It was just perfect ending to the whole Portugal tour!

Miss this time and this place, grateful that I have with me my memory-keepers - my sketches! Every sketch is like a concentrated capsule full of views and faces, words and sounds, smells, moods, and so much more - magic of sketching that forces us really observe and feel the surrounding!   

Porto USk Symposium - part IV (Portugal trip)

I could stay and sketch in beautiful Porto forever, but as every trip, ours had limited time, and in our plans was to end Lisbon, to which I had special sentiments. Here are sketches done during our way from Porto to Lisbon - we did several stops. These are from colorful and very authentic Coimbra - city with very old University and breathtaking panoramas:

These from Medieval town Obiedos - very special place, still keeping his antique look:

And one - I couldn't resist - from the local Portuguese beach:

Wait for the last Portuguese post - from Porto!

Porto USk Symposium - part III (post Symposium)

So, the Symposium was over, and after the last evening with a lot of hugs, kisses and good-buys, I woke up at the next morning, finally having time to explore the city on my own. Many of urban sketchers were still staying in the city, so I had a calming feeling that the party is not over. We went with my friend Rachel to a sketching walk.
Are you familiar with this phenomenon? All the busy days during the symposium, I was "eating" with my eyes beautiful views of Porto, thinking to myself: "If I just had half an hour!" Now, when I had a free day, suddenly I couldn't find a spot to sketch at...
Anyway, here is the first "after-symposium" sketch, done after we crossed the river from
Jardim do Morro:

 One more while meeting some friends-sketchers for the dinner:

And more sketches staying in Porto few more days, after my husband Marcos arrived to accompany me at the rest of the Portugal trip:

Noamy's Birthday Sketchcrawl

It was very special sketchcrawl, dedicated to 15th Birthday of one of our group's youngest members Noamy. Noamy's sketches are always inspire me, her vision and hand are so fresh and she succeed not to fall to an automatic solutions and approaches. We all tend to fall into our comfort zone, to use tools and  techniques we're "good" in, and for me it's very inspiring to see bold brave voice full of talent.
Orna, Noamy's mother, hosted us in her beautiful and very artistic house in Jaffa. It's amazing that short time after everybody arrived, greeted each other and chatted a bit, suddenly the house became silent and the scribbling of pencils were the only noise in the air :)
It was a nice opportunity to sketch other sketches - something I don't allow to myself usually at our sketchcrawls.

What is hidden inside the garden

I knew that setting meeting point for our Sketchcrawl at Levinsky Garden will be challenging. Tel Aviv is a city of contrasts, even in the most touristic place you'll find contrasts between new and old, beautiful and ugly, rich and poor. Levinsky Garden and next to it Neve Shaanan neighborhood long time ago turned to be kind of a different country, populated by immigrants it has a life of its own and you can see straight away who's a citizen and who's a tourist. We felt a bit uncomfortable to come there with our fancy sketching tools to "hunt" our objects.
I decided to start from sketching the surrounding, despite that what interested me the most were, of course, the people. I wanted to give myself time to observe the place from distance, to absorb and to be absorbed. The garden was very nice, wide and blooming. The atmosphere there were very calm, everything were easygoing. People - black men mostly - passed slowly, stopped in groups for a few minutes of conversation and continued to pass. There were a few "constant" - the man with the orange shirt who was doing his morning washing near the garden tap. And the man in the white undershirt who was walking back and forth while turning his hands - performing strange gymnastic exercises. Nobody created eye contact and didn't approached. I felt detached and not belonging.

I moved to the edge of the garden and started to sketch people. Here as well nobody approached, just a few asked if we're drawing them. Most of them were busy talking one to another.

among black men only who occupied the benches around suddenly set down Asian woman, smoked her cigarette and moved on

I moved to the playground where I found Nitzan and her friends, and around them gathered a group of children. At the begging children were suspicious - why would group of adult people draw in the middle of their's playground? But very soon they all joined sketching. It was so gladdening scene, with a lot of great energies - the real spirit of urban sketching which creates interaction with the surrounding!

one of the mothers in the garden

children are sketching

I also did some sketches, but mostly were chatting with the children and taking pictures. Our sketchcrawl was coming to its end. We spread out our sketches on the ground, children looked at them together with us and asked when we'll come again. Some of them joined us to the final photo :)


Here are some sketches I did in the Eritrean restaurant, were we were eating with Nathan after the sketchecrawl.

beautiful couple in the restaurant

This watercolor sketch was done a few days earlier, when Nathan and me came to check the location. The pastoral garden with complicated stories inside it. We should come back!