Sketchcrawl at Crazy Saturday in Gouda

This Saturday it was Crazy Saturday in Gouda. The town hosted a festival from the Middle Ages, complete with a market, lots of music and people dressed as from the Middle Ages. Lords and ladies in beautiful costumes and all kinds of working class and crazy people.

The festival included the Sketchcrawl, so you could see sketchers all over town! I had a great time!

I started with the beautiful town hall on the market square, this is only a small part of it.

Then we listened to some music, they danced around a lot, could not capture them well..

And later in the afternoon I sketched the gate to the Museum of Gouda.

Holiday sketches from Greece - part 2

As promised here are more sketches from my vacation last week in Greece.

Holiday Essentials - sparkling water with lemon, a good book, sunscreen, a hat and sunglasses. Oooohh... and a sketchbook of course...:-)!

We went to Olympia one day, a step back in history. Just a 2 hours drive away.

A quick watercolor sketch of the view from our balcony over Navarino Bay.

My sister (and I) drinking a frappé (cold coffee) on a terrace in Gialova

This was our home for the holiday. A beautiful villa. Eleonas Holiday Houses in Gialova. 

Sunny day - perfect for sketching

Today was a lovely sunny day, a great day to go to Utrecht and do some sketching. First I visited the Old Hortus in Utrecht, since a few months they have the Victoria Amazonia in their collection.

From the Wikipedia:

Victoria is a genus of water-lilies, in the plant family Nymphaeaceae, with very large green leaves that lie flat on the water's surface. Victoria amazonica has a leaf that is up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) in diameter, on a stalk up to 8 metres (26 ft) in length. The genus name was given in honour of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Victoria amazonica is native to the shallow waters of the Amazon River basin, such as oxbow lakes and bayous. It is depicted in the Guyanese coat of arms. The flowers are white the first night they are open and become pink the second night. They are up to 40 cm in diameter, and are pollinated by scarab beetles.

And on their café's terrace I started with a latte, moving on to ordering lunch. It was so lovely in the sunshine!

Then I headed back to the busstop, but decided to do another sketch on the Korte Minrebroederstraat. This is the square behind the city hall. The square and all the beautiful buildings are nicely renovated with lots and lots of terraces. Oh... and lot's of bikes of course ;-)

Tomorrow I have a meeting in Amsterdam, and then I go on vacation for a week. Greece, here I come!

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!