Windows Vista

Some weeks ago, it was about 3 in the afternoon. I looked through the window and suddenly had an art attack. I took my sketchbook and drew the vista I had before me: windows, windows and more windows. While I was drawing I though about Mr. Gates... and that I have never owned a PC, I've always used a Mac. Wandering thoughts that come through my head while drawing.

Villa Giulia, Rome

We started sketching class yesterday at Piazza di Spagna (aka the "Spanish Steps"), and I spent my time helping students - it's a very challenging subject. When we broke for lunch, I scooted ahead to do a sketch of the Palazzina di Pio IV, which turns the corner with a beautiful composition of engaged columns, inscribed tablets, and a fountain at the base. My students caught up and started gathering around just as I was beginning to put down the first washes. I sort of rushed it at the end, but was still happy with the result.

Next we walked down the street to the Villa Giulia, built for Julius III in 1550-55, and designed be Vignola, Vasari, and Ammannati ... "with some help from Michelangelo," or so says my guidebook. It contains the national museum of Etruscan antiquities - though I suppose it's redundant to say "Etruscan antiquities," because, if it was made by Etruscans, then it must be ancient. The museum is very interesting, but the villa is really fascinating. The organization of the plan and the way the nymphaeum drops in section ... it's a sequence of spaces that's impossible to capture in one or two perspectives, so I opted for a plan/section/paraline combination. It was a great challenge! 

Three for Ackland

As some of you may know, USK asked us to contribute to an exposition in the Ackland museum, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
I decided to contribute, and made these three drawings specially for the occasion.

As it happened I visited three different continents within one week (which was the last week of April) and I made these three drawings on these places, hopefully showing something of the cultural differences.

First I was in Baton Rouge Louisiana (USA), for business, where I made this drawing stading on a traffic island opposite the hotel.

Then I flew back home, to the Netherlands. The drawing shows the 18th century castle, which can be found a few hundred meters from my home.

 After only two days at home I travelled to Istanbul with my wife, for a nice citytrip.
This is the view from room 308 of the Citadel hotel to the blue mosque; the lines are not so straight because I had to bend over the television set to make this drawing.

I attached a real token of each place to the drawings: the label of a bottle of Louisiana Chilli sauce (wow that was hot!), a part of the package of flowerseeds that I bought at the gardencentre which forms part of the castle, and the entrance ticket to the Hagia Sofia.

My street

The sun finally arrived in Berlin and I can go out and paint bigger watercolors. I decided to start from my street. every day I go by this corner and like the view of this building. I told to myself many times that I should paint it.

The watercolors is 36 x 48 cm. I took my arround 2 hours. .

Do you Remember my last post about  the Einstein Cafe? I wrote that I wanted to make a bigger watercolor based on that sketch. I finally did it and also wrote some commments in my blog about how I painted it. Check in omar-paint.blogspot.com

Last drink

A Turkish mosque: Tokyo Camii

I knew there is a mosque not far from a station where I often transfer whenever I go to Tokyo but until this day I had no chance to visit there. So I determined to stopover and sketch it. What a charming and solemn place!





I don't think this drawing does justice to the sacred, sublime beauty enough, I was in awe and filled with purifying chant at that moment.. I hope this doesn't offend peoples mind, there should be strict manner, meanings of each form which I hardly be able to pick correctly.

$uper $ingapore $ale art exhibition, Singapore

Tia, Don and myself recently took part in a group exhibition, inspired by our crazy annual Great Singapore Sale. Timed to precede the start of this city wide shopping event, this exhibition delves on the rising consumerism in Singapore. This is what we do when we are not urbansketching.             TIA next to your acrylic painting depicting her favourite cafe scenes and two fat ladies sharing a small burger after their shopping spree.

        This is one of my four pieces of artwork which was specially created for the exhibition. This photograph shows you the process of how I combined my love for on-location urbansketching, watercolour & paper architecture to create something new. It was fun cutting up my sketches and painting and reconstituting back together to tell my story. This piece is entitled 'My Appetite, My Wants'. I was inspired by how some of us confuse our needs & wants and would rather sacrifice food to buy an expensive pair of shoe or bag.

Oahu

On my first trip to Hawaii earlier this month I was excited to draw the tropical surroundings as a nice break from drawing around San Francisco.

I definitely wanted to try sketching with colour on this trip - but my water-colour skills are pretty lousy and I just couldn't capture the vivid Hawaiian hues.

I resorted to black & white sketches when lack of time necessitated that approach

More on the blog

Urban sketching in Naples

Today I was at Riot in Palazzo Marigliano to get things ready fot the first Urban Sketchers Workshop that starts tomorrw with me, Caroline Peyron e Laura Scarpa. I couldn't resist to draw in the garden and I noticed this incredible color of palm fruits - impossible to reproduce. On Sunday we'll have an open Portrait Party in this garden, at the end of workshop. Hopefully the seed of sketching will have its fruits in Naples too.



Among participants we'll have professionists and beginners, architects, illustrators, photographers, students, medicians, coming from Liverpool, London, Jena, Singapore, Taiwan, Barcelona, Milan, Rimini and Naples... it seems that we are going to have fun!
Local newspaper translated officially Urban Sketchers in "Disegnatori Urbani": il Mattino di Napoli.

searching unpost sketches ....

original paper size 48x18 cm, drawing pen & water color

 

It has been too long not to post on the blog. Until the board remind me .. this drawing were done a few months back that I always wanted to post but I have problem with the scanner...  Two sketches were done in the morning at the port with different technique. Another one is showing my tools on the table. The  paper I use is a recycle paper  ... I hope it brings back my spirit of sketching.

Fair

Every year we have a street fair on our block. Brooklyn and new York have these kind of things all the time. The one on our block is an exception. Our block has a few of the best restaurants in New York. Prime Meats, Buttermilk Channel and Frankies. The restaurants do their own outdoor cooking. Not the usual street fair food. They are roasting who;e pigs and there are rib smokers going all day long. All the bars put tables on the street. You can buy food and take it to any bar and eat it with some good brews. I always look forward to our unusually good street fair.

Recycling houses

On Saturday our sketching group went to a salvage yard out North of the city. We were a bit dismayed at first at the unattractive scenery, but started drawing the piles of wood, tiles and bathroom fittings and were soon absorbed in the shapes and shadows, and comings and goings of people loading stuff onto trucks. By the time I was on the last typically Johannesburg landscape of dusty road, dry wintry sun and long grass turned to gold (top), I was really enjoying myself - just as the foreman came to say they were locking up, time to go home...

鹹魚仔巷 Fish Lane

Size: 28 x 76 cm
Media: Chinese ink on paper

Vanishing Point

Summer Sundays are the quietest days in an Italian town. The ordinary hush of midday becomes perfect stillness, complete emptiness. Sitting and drawing the shuttered newsstand in Piazza Giuseppe at noon, I notice that I've happened upon a vanishing point for the last few people in Viterbo.

Under the canopy of a solitary tree, a series of senior citizens arrive one by one at ten minute intervals. Each stands briefly under the tree until a car pulls up. Most often, a child opens a back door, allowing the grandparent to join the family in the back seat. As the cars swing around the piazza and out through the walls of Viterbo, I see beach toys poking out of the back of the car. 

Making Of - Part 04 and 05.

More photos and sketches from the filming of the short film about my work.