Backgammon "club" at the flea market

Jaffa Flea market is one of the most colorful places in Tel Aviv, full of authentic characters, patterns, smells, sounds and stories.
After I came back from Singapore, where I was fascinated by the chess players "club" in the middle of the Chinatown, I was looking for opportunity to sketch street games players here in Israel. This week I found them at the Jaffa . Small table and two chairs in the middle of the street, two players surrounded by the group of men - was really the best show in the city! I think that Olympic Games competitors need to learn the worrier's spirit from these backgammon players!

Suddenly we saw at the opposite site of the street group of men organizing something... What are they up to? They turned to Jerusalem direction and started to pray:

Of course, there is no sketching day without food - we couldn't resist to have some humus!

Small cup of black coffee and Nathan, very concentrated by sketching people around :)

 It was perfect sketching day!

Going to sketch the people of Lisbon!

Everything is almost ready for my trip to Lisbon, I'm very excited toward this small journey. I got an invitation from a group of Portuguese fellow sketchers to give there a workshop, which I happily received. I'm excited to come back to the city connected to my many great memories - the place I participated for the first time in USk Symposium, met in person so many virtual friends! And the beautiful city by itself, I fell in love with from the first site. And, of course, my workshop - we're going to sketch on the anniversary day of the Portugal revolution, to capture the "heroes" of the city - its citizens!

some giveaways for the workshop  - flyers and postcards

As you can guess, the workshop will be about sketching people - subject I love the most. We'll do some fun and loosing up exercises and I hope that we will enjoy the process, that's way beautiful results will come as well!

Here are some sketches I did during my Drink&Draw meeting with my friend Aurore at Jaffa's Flea market last Thursday evening - the perfect place for capturing people and their stories!

Looking forward to sketching the people of Lisbon!

Drink&Draw sketchcrawl

I don't know who invited this perfect combination - Drink&Draw, if anybody. As my sketchbook is always in my bag, it's natural for me to pull it out at coffee shops and bars. These places are perfect for sketching - people are sunk in food and chatting and don't pay attention to the fact that they're turning to models ;)
So summer heat forced us to move our sketchcrawl to the nigh time and we met at one of the restaurants at the Jaffa flea market - bubbly and fun place.
It was a sketchcrawl in a bit different atmosphere - night lighting, a lot of noise and action around and... a bit of alcohol, which for me, personally, helps to "loosen up".
It was so fun, perfect combination, looks like we are going to come back to "Drink&Draw" from time to time.

the first sketch - before it got dark

my fellow sketchers are busy

and here some more

Girls night out!

Last Thursday I had a great girls night out with my two friends-sketchers Aurore ans Irirt. We met at the flea market area at the old Jaffa. We strolled at the narrow streets full of small bars and coffee shops, which took out tables and chairs and turned streets to the one big party, crowded by chatting and laughing young people.
Finally, we found for us a perfect place - on a side, a bit up, so we had a perfect view on everything. Beers and sea food were ordered and the waiter barely found place on our table loaded by sketching tools. We started with big collaborative sketch, it was so fun!

After the warming up, we just dived into the surrounding and times flied so fast!
At the some point group of girls that was sitting opposite us finally noticed that we are sketching them. They asked us to see the sketches and was shocked to see theirself drawn! They took photos of our sketches and asked us who we are and why we are doing it. It was very nice interaction!

So, here is the perfect formula we'd discovered at this night: friends+beer+sketching=happiness!
Waiting for the next girls-out-night!

Sketchcrawl at colorful Dizengoff Square

Dizengoff Square, one of the icons of Tel Aviv, was our meeting point for the last Sketchcrawl. It'is challenging for me to transform the feeling of such an iconic place, that was drawn and photographed so many times, without falling into "postcard view".
I started from colorful flea market under the square, full of special objects and people :)

I got up back to the square, and sketched this very urban view down to the streets.

Finally, I've got to the bride - colorful fountain!  People that crossed the square competed with her :)

 I used last minutes capturing people at square.

This sketchcrawl was especially fun  - the place, the weather, and the most important - the company. It is always exciting to see at the end all these different approaches and points of view of the same place!

Findings from the Flea Market

Jaffa's colorful flea market is one of my favorite places. Furniture and jewelry, toys and books, from east and west, ugly and beautiful - it's full of mixed stuff and so are people that came to sell, to buy, or simply to hang out and to feel the atmosphere. This Friday it was double fun for me to come here, because we set at this place the meeting point for our monthly Sketchcrawl. So instead of finding interesting things to buy, I was busy by finding stories to sketch, and I didn't need to go far at all!
We started over nice cup of coffee sitting together with my fellow sketchers, busy by chatting.

my friend Rachel and the street ant the background

view on the coffee shop where I was sitting earlier

flea market behind the coffee shop

another point of view to the market

colorful announcement's board

above view to the coffee shop from the second flour

Lucky me, I've got everything together in one day - perfect company, perfect place and perfect activity - what can be better?

Sketching at Yafo flea market

Last Saturday our USk group met at Yafo Flea Market area for the Sketchcrawl. The market is close at Saturdays, but coffee shops are open, so it was very convenient for us, sketchers - streets aren't too crowded, but still there are a lot of people to sketch.

It was great, as always, and I don't know what's more fun - sketching itself, or all that nice company around