Some sketches

Been very busy.
Made some sketches.
The first 3 are from a sketchcrawl we organised in Antwerp. (It was a cooperation between USK BE, NL & Den Haag) About 20-30 people came. It was fun!

 

Inside the garden of the Rubenshuis

 

A flower and an Icecream shop

 

Some houses on the Groenplaats

This last one is from a crawl in Brussel. I was only there at 1 pm. (The others met up aroun 8 Am but I had a late night)

So this is the only sketch I managed. 

View on the centre of brussels from Museumberg

Sketchcrawl in Doel

On 14/8/2016 we were invited by Jeroen Janssen to come along to Doel and sketch during it's village feast and the 'Scheldewijding'.
 It was a very early morning: 7.45 am. On a Saturday!! Not my regular weekend.

Now this isn't just a "normal" village. Almost all houses are empty. Almost all people left. There are just 20 left. A long time ago the city wanted to expand their harbor and Doel was chosen to be burried beneath a few meters of sand. But the villagers started to protest. One by one the house got bought and more and more people left. Untill now. There are still lawsuits going on between the villagers and the city. No one really know what is going to happen.
For most of the year this village is pretty empty. Sometimes some tourists visit. During the night it was a good place for criminals to exchange drugs but the police is trying stop that.

But during this weekend the village was lively again. Streets where filled, bars where open and life music was everywhere. A lot of people were interested in us Urban Sketchers. Great day, great weather, great sketches!! I hope to go again next time!

I do need to draw more though. Only did 4 sketches in a whole day.

Sketchcrawl: Deurne, Sterckshof

Last Saturday we had a Sketchrawl inside the Sterckshof.  This a a castle build for fun. No one ever really lived in it but many women where courted in there.
As of writing this it's for sale, but until it's sold it's rented out to artists as studio spaces. A very good idea in my opinion.
But enough jaki-di-jak here are the sketches.

Medieval Reenactment sketchcrawl

Today was that day! The first sketchcrawl I organised. There is a Medieval Reenactment at a local park in my city. It started a long time as a very small fair but has grown over the year to one of the biggest in europe.
 But enough about the fair let's talk sketching...
 I made a small mistake: I said 10 o'clock in the information but the facebook event said 11.
 3 people turned up 2 of them never having attend any kind of Urban sketching event!
After some small chit-chat we all went our own ways. (We agreed to meetup a few hours later for pictures)
The weather was lovely and sketching went well. I sketched 2 stalls and a small table. I did walk around a while to look how everyone was doing. So only 2 sketches...

At the end we took some pictures and went our seperate ways. 2 of them stayed and sketched even more. I needed to get some bread in the oven...

USK Netherlands first annual Sketchcrawl in Utrecht.

On the 28th of may USK Netherlands organised the first Annual sketchcrawl. We (me and 2 other sketchers) went with a small group of Belgian sketchers to join them. 
There was a workshop on perspective given by Rene Fijten for the people who wanted.  It was a very good workshop and time flew by! Before I knew it was 2 hours further. I was starving so I joined a small group for lunch. And not much later (as said before time flew by!) we had to gather at the endpoint for the group picture.
Add this point I only had made 1 sketch. Luckily me and the other 2 Belgians spent some time after it to go to another location to sketch.
Even though I only had the chance to made 2 sketches that day I had a lovely day.
I did learn that I need to make the most of my time at events.  (Bring my own lunch)

First sketch made for the Perspective workshop.

 

A sketch I made after the group picture.

 

A quick sketch I made during a short break

Quondam and how to turn boring meetings in quality time...

I organised a sketchcrawl at one of the biggest renaissance fair in Belgium. Sadly it was on very short notice and the weather was rather sad so no people came. No problem for me, I can help myself So i went by myself.  I only made 2 sketches since the weather was just not nice. (I heard it cleared up after I got home but to late...

 

This Tuesday I was in a boring meeting where I hadn't too much to do so I spent the time sketching the people around the table. I'm getting better with faces. Now for the bodies...

Holiday and family weekend.

Thursday was a National Holiday and the weather was just soooo nice that I "had" to go out and sketch. After a small bike around the city I went to sketch a small square. (sketched there before)

There where a lot of different music buskers, great atmosphere!

 

This weekend was the yearly big family weekend. I found a little bit of time to  sketch the house where we stayed.

Busy times...

A lot of time has passed and a lot has happend.

1. I started working Part time.
2. Bought a new tube of Ultramarine blue light (Blockx)
3. got a commission for a sky line of antwerp.
4. Went on a Sketchcrawl in Rotterdam.

Here are the sketches from the last few weeks. A lot less then before due to working every afternoon from Monday - Friday.

  Cathedral of Antwerp.

A market stall. 

From the Sketchcrawl in Rotterdam. This is at the old harbor

This is inside the market hall of Rotterdam.

The next sketches are try-outs for the commission.

Getting the white stuff...

I was running out of flour and since I bake a lot of bread I needed some. There is a mill where I  sort of know the miller.
Since the weather was really nice it was the perfect time for a bike ride to the mill for some flour and a sketch.
With 21° Celsius and a clear sky I set of on a 23 km bike ride. One hour and a half later I arrived.
After a a nice sketch, some nice talking and a look inside the mill I got the flour I needed for free (!)
The small bar next to the mill asked if they could get a copy of the sketch to hang on their wall.
The ride back was tiring. (I hadn't had a decent meal that day).
Great day!!

3 sketches, 2 days and new stuff

So a lot happend the last few days. Here we go!

First is a small tunnel in Antwerp. I did sketch this one before but never painted it.

A small cafe behind the Cahthedral. I used a modified Jinhao for this. (more of that later in this post).

The last sketch is just another cafe. I just liked the colors.

I did go shopping yesterday and bought a better folding chair.

Also my Jinhao X750  arrived today. I orderd this to modify it so a G nib fits in to it. I got the idea from a post on Parkablogs
It does have some problems. The ink doesn't flow perfectly. It needs a little bit of priming sometimes and I need to work slower.

Painting to distract myself...

Made 2 sketches yesterday. One of a popup restaurant from a TV sohw, another from the back of the gate of the art university.

But that's not the point. Today Brussels International Airport was under attack. A terrorist attack killed several people and injured many more. A very sad day for Belgium and indeed Humanity.  Painting my sketches helped me relax a bit.

 Love for the world...

Going to disappear

Sketched the old scout buildings again. This time with the sqaure in front of it.
It's fun to flip through my drawings and see how I evolve sketching the same building.
The birdge on the right side was at a 90 degrees angle to the rest of the sketch. Couldn't get them right...

The old tram station.

This building was used to store the trams after their shift was done. Now it's mostly used for doing repairs on them. Was a great sketch.

Catching up and a new sketchbook!

I didn't update this blog for some days. So here is the catch up entry.

First I started in a new sketchbook. For the first page I felt like making a title page.

(Inspiration came from Liz steel)

The first sketch is the Radisson next tot the Central station in Antwerp. That day was awefull... The weather was soo gray, wet and cold. I did the pencil and inking on location but after that I had to go back to paint it.

 

A few days after that the weather was a bit bette. Still colder but not wet.I painted the greenhouse of the botanical gardens next to the ST. Elisabeth hospital. A small but fun garden.  

Rainy day and a new brush.

Yesterday was (as are most of the lately) a very wet day. So drawing outside was outside the question. Luckily there is the Central Station. A big part of it is more a shopping mall. So I propped up my little seat there and drew the view.

 

On other news: I got my new brush on monday! It's a Rosemary & co R9.

I got  this brush recommended by the blog of the lovely Jane Blundell.
This brush is amazing:
- Holds insane amounts of water.
- Has a fine point.
- Is big enough to fill large areas.

I needed to get used to it though. It behaves a bit different from my previous synthetic one.
But I really like it. (especially for such a low price)

Rainy wet day and the old stock exchange

Very rainy today so I needed to find a dry place to sketch. Luckily we have one of the oldest stock exchanges in the world. Although this was more like a spice market, it can be retraced to the stock market. I did the pencil and inking on location but for painting the weather was still to cold so I did it at home.
Next time i'll try to "zoom out" more.

Back again: 3th sketch

Had to sketch again but it was (again) later on the day so I went to the same old building. Good training to sketch the same thing regularly.

I used an Extra Fine Japanese fountain pen, so it's really hair fine!. Still need to work on the green part but i'll get it... (hopefully before they're demolished)

Here is the last time I sketched it.

Need.to.sketch.more!!!

It's been more than a week since I sketched. That's way too long, for me at least. I need to draw more. The cold weather is not helping so I forced myself to sketch! and here is my front window. Next time i'll draw another piece of my appartement, good for when it's too cold...