National Sketchcrawl Urban Sketchers NL

Yesterday was the 3rd National Sketchcrawl of the Urban Sketchers Netherlands in 2017. We already sketched in Haarlem (March), Utrecht (May) and yesterday we were in 's-Hertogenbosch. A beautiful city with great places to sketch.

I sketched the Sint Jans cathedral twice, once from the Parade and once from the other side. And then sketched a statue outside the Noord-Brabants museum. It was a great day, luckily with good weather, nice people and lots of sketching!

Last summer sun in Greece

Last week I was on Samos, an island in Greece, near Turkey. To soak up the last summer sun. The temperature was really nice, with lots of sunshine. My sister and I rented a great villa near Phytagorion with views on the sea and the coast of Turkey.

View from our villa

One of the churches we past on our trips and a visit to the Archeological Museum in Vathi - Samos city

A view of Kokkari

Cappuccino in Kokkari

View from our villa, the mountains of Turkey in the early morning fog

A monastery in the hills, and old remains in Phytagorion

And a tasty grilled sea-bream for lunch

And now we are back home again, autumn is here and the summer time has ended. Time to go back to work!

Sketching San Diego

Life has taken it normal pace again. I have been busy with visiting family and friends, drinking coffee, going out for lunch and looking for a new assignment in the meantime. I am not in a hurry to start work again, I really enjoy my time off.

I have been going thru all the pictures I took while I was in San Diego, and found a few more to sketch. In my Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook.

Mission San Luis Rey (Oceanside) on the left and the rocky shores of La Jolla on the right.

Two beautiful Asian sculptures (seen in the San Diego Museum of Art)

Balboa Park near the lily pond

And with added watercolors 

I will be leaving for another week holiday soon, I am going to Greece this time, with my sister. Hopefully we can catch the last sun of this summer :-).

Last week in San Diego

My last week in San Diego has started... A few more days to go before I fly home. I have really enjoyed myself, and still am, but I am alzo looking forward to go home. Unfortunately I cannot taken the nice weather with me..

First let me show you some of the seascapes I painted last week.

Friday I went to San Diego old town. The place where the first Europeans settled. It has lovely old buildings,  most of them are small museums you can visit. And lots of shops and restaurants. All Mexican. Nice to walk around, sketch and browse. 

And on Saturday I went on the weekly outing with the San Diego Urban Sketchers. To Encinitas this week. To sketch at the annual Woodie Fest. A fest with all classic cars, woodies, cars with wood. Built to transport surfboards. It was really fun,  but extremely hot and humid this Saturday. 

Sunday it was so hot, it was beter inside than outside. I did go to the Seaport Village in San Diego to look around. It is next to the water and has beautiful views. 

And today is already Monday, my last few days in San Diego. There is a storm coming our way so I drove to Balboa Park to sketch this morning. And it stayed dry all afternoon, actually it still is... I walked around, sketched the tower of the museum of man from the Alcazar garden and visited the museum. Great museum, a bit small but with lovely exhibitions of Maya's, mummies and interesting stuff on genes, dna ,  etc.

After a nice lunch I went back to La Jolla, taking the scenic drive. 

Learning a new technique - Steven Reddy's Craftsy class

I took Steven Reddy's class on Craftsy and I love the new technique I learned. It starts with a sketch with pen and an underpainting with Indian ink. Love the technique! The class is great, Steven is very patient, explains well and he is very comforting, you are allowed to make mistakes. Great class for everyone who wants to learn new sketching techniques.


All in my Stillman and Birn Zeta sketchbook, 7" x 7".

Flower pots with ink washes

And the flower pots with watercolors

And a selfie ;-)

And it also works for portraits

The flower pots and Jim (the old man), the references are from pmp-art.com. PaintMyPhoto. The selfie of me on a Greek terrace drinking coffee is my own.