Sun, coffee and gouache in Jaffa

Sunny spring afternoon, we're having coffee at one of the corners of Jaffa. I'm pulling out my gouache set and starting to arrange the colors on the palette. "And what about the paints?"- the waitress is asking me while she brings ours coffee. "What about them?" - I'm asking her. "They wouldn't dirt the table?" "No, please don't worry! They are water based!"
Recently I'm in love with gouache and acrylic. I want to back to painting, the real one, as I did in the art school, but I don't have proper time for it. So I'm trying to bring it to my Urban Sketching. It requires more arrangements than just watercolor and pencils. And my bag is getting heavy. But I don't give up, and it pays back - I enjoy it a lot.

In my first sketch I'm trying to capture the whole scene - the street, the coffee drinkers and especially the sun coming from theirs back and giving all the characters kind of  aureole.
The couple on the left were speaking Italian, on the right - Russian. I felt abroad.

The group that came after were German tourists.

This girl with high hairdo arrived suddenly, drunk her coffee along, and continued on her way. I barely had time to capture her.

 And at the end - how not? My friends Nathan and Shai, smoking and chatting.

Purim Sketchcrawl

Every year I want to set our monthly sketchcrawl at the Purim street party, and every year I afraid to make life of my fellow sketchers too tough :) This year I dared to do it. Now, when it's over, all I can say is - well done! we're amazing group! It was so fun!
We met one hour before the party started, stated by sketching security guys, busy by preparing to the event.

my friend Rachel is ready to the sketchcrawl :)

policemen and thieves

people are waiting to enter to the party

Finally, the party were officially opened and Rachel and me entered to the State Square together with hundred of people wearing colorful costumes. The amount of people were relatively not so big, we could even buy a beer without staying in the line and find plenty of place on the grass to sit down and relax. It was so fun to sit under the sprig sun, to absorb the atmosphere and to observe the public wearing costumes and moving around. At the beginning it was difficult to concentrate, but little by little the beer and the atmosphere were absorbed inside me and I started to sketch. Each time I "hunted" with my eyes interesting character or interaction I tried to put it on the paper.

The music and the amount of people increased together with my sketching pace. It was almost meditative - free and unconscious flow. At some point I woke up and felt overwhelmed. Just in time when Rachel reminded me that we need to return to the meeting point.
It was huge fun, fantastic experience for the people sketching lovers!
I'm already waiting for the next year :)