Night Run
I really like how the two watercolours on this page “melt” together, and in general this is one of my favourite sketchbook spreads created as part of the Sketchbook Design course.
Tag: Sketchbook Design
DDC Rumpl
Another page out of my sketchbook. I’ve had the DDC Rumpl blanket for over two months and it’s become a house favourite. The only thing I regret is buying only one.
Sweet Box
Catching up on some more sketchbook pages from my Sketchbook Design course as I’m working on giving my palette the largest overhaul it’s had since I started painting with watercolours. This page was inspired by the final box I got from the Tel Aviv muncipality’s “The Box” project, created to support local businesses during the lockdown.
Urban Sketchers Tel Aviv Sketchwalk: Park HaMesila
My first Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl of the year (there was one earlier, in March, but my mom was hospitalized, so I couldn’t make it) to the brand new Park HaMesila in the beautiful Neve Zedek neighbourhood. A dump and parking lot have been transformed into a park that will lead all the way to the Tachana complex once it’s complete. At the moment it offers a very little shade and not much greenery, but you can see the potential, and you can definitely see how much people are loving it.
The park follows the old Turkish railroad (which went from Jaffa to Jerusalem and was notoriously slow), and though I didn’t draw them because things were starting to get too busy in my sketch, the path has old rail lines embedded into it, which is a lovely touch.
I then drew part of Suzanne Dellal’s Center of Dance (it’s the Batsheva’s Dance Company’s home, and in Hebew is generally pronounced Suzanne Dallal).
A spread summarizing my day and a bit more of the neighbourhood, created at home (unlike the first two) from pictures. I traced the map from a navigation map that I got from a local navigation race that happened to take place in the area, and had fun with some design elements that I learned in the Sketchbook Design course that I took.
I used my new palette and a brand new Stillman and Birn Alpha and I quite like the freedom that its lightweight paper encourages.
City in Grey
In early January we had a bout of very foggy days and I took photos of various city scenes in the lockdown and the fog thinking that I’d later draw them. I thought that drawing fog in watercolour would be pretty straightforward, because what is easier than just drawing wet on wet and letting the watercolour do its thing? But after looking more closely at the photos I realized that fog isn’t just grey sky melting into the landscape, it’s also a muting of colours, a flattening of the landscape, the lack of shadow. In the end I drew two small landscapes, one urban and one of the park, and although they were challenging I enjoyed drawing them enough to want to have the same experience with the text. The grey writing in Hebrew in the bottom right corner is a line out of a well known rock song that embodies a lot of the spirit of Tel Aviv. It was written using Diamine Silver Fox on a semi-wet background, to facilitate ink spread.
These drawing also showcase a shift I have made in my palette and my mixing over the past few weeks. Once things settle down I’ll probably post about my new palette.
Lego Architecture Trafalgar Square
I created this page as part of Liz Steel‘s excellent Sketchbook Design course. I remember drawing it while listening to a live Q&A with the Mischief Theatre improvisors on Instagram. I got back to building Legos after more than 20 years because I saw how much joy Adam Savage took in building Legos and I decided that I wanted some of that childhood joy back too.
I discovered that legos have become much more sophisticated these days, especially the Ideas and Architecture sets, and that building Legos puts me into a zen like mood that beats anything I’ve been able to achieve with meditation so far. My mind becomes calm and focused on the step that I’m on and I can utterly forget about my problems for a few hours. If I didn’t have budget and space limitations I would be knee-deep in the giant Millennium Falcon set as we speak.
Today I discovered that a local Lego guru is collecting money to buy sets for kids that are going to spend Passover in the Oncology departments of various local children’s hospitals. For years he’s been purchasing sets for kids, teenagers and young adults that are hospitalized for long periods of time, at first entirely from his own pocket, and now with the help of donations as well.
If you can, treat yourself and someone you care for to something like a Lego set, or a nice pen, or a cool notebook or just a half hour of listening to them talk about whatever they want to. I think we could all use a little kindness pick me up right now.
Silver Needle Tea Seminar and Virtual Tea Seminar Review
I drew this spread as part of Liz Steel‘s Sketching Now Sketchbook Design course, and it records my experiences from the final virtual tea seminar session that I had with Juyan from The Chinese Tea Company. I took all of the seminars that she offers, and I can see that she’s running a few of them again later this month and next month. I highly, highly recommend them (I’m not affiliated or paid to say this in any way, I’m just a happy longtime customer of her wonderful shop). Whether you are just starting out in Chinese tea or you’re well versed in Gong fu tea brewing, you’ll learn a lot about tea and tea tasting in her seminars, and have a lot of fun along the way. You get four tea samples that you drink while your in the seminar (and there’s enough left over for another brewing post seminar too), Juyan gives a presentation about the tea, the grower and the growing region, as well as tips on how to assess the leaves, brew them and taste them. The seminars are small and intimate, and are a wonderful way to spend an evening. If you’re starting out the Fundamentals of Oolongs and Green Tea Exploration (currently sold out) are phenomenal, the Wu Yi Rock tea seminar is a must – a gateway into understanding a complicated and elusive tea (as is the Phoenix Oolong seminar, if she gives it again). The Puer tea masterclass (also sold out) is just that, and a great way to get familiar with an easily misunderstood class of teas, and the Silver Needle White Tea seminar will take you by surprise. Until this seminar I thought that white tea in general and Silver Needle in particular is boring, but it’s anything but that.
Cat Comfort
Another spread from my sketchbook, also created as part of the Sketchbook Design course. I still need to find a way of drawing my black cat without him turning into a dark blob on the page.
Mexican Feast
This is the first time I’ve used colour blocks to design a page in this way, with vertical drawings and horizontal text. This page was created as a contained composition for Liz Steel’s Sketchbook Design course (highly recommended, especially if you have a basic handle on drawing and sketching already). I normally would have just done an overlapped jumble of all the things that we cooked that evening, to convey a bit of the chaos of cooking so much in just an hour and a half, but I forced myself to think of a way of creating some of that night’s feeling using a contained composition. The vibrant turquoise was what brought this page to life for me: a joyful colour that connects me with what I learned about Mexico during that evening, and the happiness of cooking my way through a small part of the wonderful Mexican cuisine.
BTW – I just noticed that Jenny Mason from The Finer Point also took the Sketchbook Design course. I love the vibrant spreads that she’s created. Go check them out.
Night Visions
I’m still working to clear my backlog, as life is starting to get back to normal. This spread was part of the Sketchbook Design course assignment focusing on contained compositions. I find drawing night scenes in watercolour particularly difficult and so I tend to avoid them. However, I couldn’t pass on the chance to draw the night heron I saw at night, and so this spread emerged.
Writing at Large 