42nd international Sketchcrawl

On Saturday I went to Mudam for the 42nd international Sketchcrawl.

Leen Van Bogaert, a fellow Urban sketcher I hadn't met yet, organised the meeting place and contacted several people.

I on my side contacted some friends. I was happily surprised when two of them showed up.

All in all we were 8 people, which I think is a very good number for a first meeting.

We all met at the entrance of Mudam and, after a few introductions, split up to do some sketching.

I only made two sketches at that point. Here is one of them.

People were coming and going, checking out an art installation.

After about one hour, we all gathered at the cafe area, where we had a nice chat and got to know each other.

I learned to my astonishment that there is a Luxembourg Sketchcrawl group and blog. Another welcome surprise!

Looking forward to more sketchcrawls with these lovely people

We were quite the international bunch: Beata, Kuba and Izabella are from Poland, Leen is from Belgium, Ana is Portuguese, Didier is French, Tessy and I are from Luxembourg.

Izabella and Kuba didn't actually sketch anything, but it was very nice meeting them

We exchanged email addresses before parting. Hopefully we'll stay in touch.

In the evening I went to see West Side Story at the Théâtre Municipal de Luxembourg. It was the perfect way to end a beautiful day.

I even got to do one last sketch.

As with all other sketches, colour was added later

January mail art

The topic of this month's mail art exchange organised by Atelier "Carnet à Spirale" is the colour green.

I have to say I wasn't very inspired for a while.

Or rather I had too many ideas to choose one.

Until this little frog jumped into my mind.

It's waiting for a princess to drop her gold ball in the water

Now it will be hopping its way to Belgium.

UPDATE: Check out the compilation of all the mail arts sent during this exchange. They all look great!

UPDATE 2: Here's the lovely envelope I received from Claire from France

I've always wanted to see a jungle :D

I just discovered washi tape

"What is this washi tape?", you might ask.

It's a kind of masking tape, only with very cute patterns, made of paper. Not surprisingly, it comes from Japan (like almost eveything cute!).

I saw a picture of a drawing including a strip of washi tape and thought I'd give it a try.

I was lucky to find some. It's not that easy to find interesting craft and drawing materials here.

I have a Lamali sketchbook with very different types of paper in it: recycled, white, orange, black, some kind of fibre, etc. I'm using it exclusively for portraits.

I chose to use the kind of orange-coloured paper instead of the white one. I think it makes it more interesting.

Here are some portraits I did for JKPP, in which I used it.

Anne

Adrienne

Danielle

Virtual Paintout January 2014: Cape Cod

This month's Virtual Paintout location is Cape Cod.

I knew of it, or rather I had heard the name before, but I didn't actually know where it was until now.

Nor how pretty it is.

It looks like the perfect place to spend a summer near the beach.

Here is my submission.

You can check out the reference image on Google Streetview.

I joined JKPP

What is that, you might ask?

Well, it's very simple: JKPP stands for Julia Kay's Portrait Party and it's the virtual equivalent of a sketching meetup where people draw each other.

So how does it work?

Basically, participants post pictures of themselves to the JKPP Flickr group so other participants can use them as inspiration to make portraits.

One aim of the group is to give artists a safe place to try out different things, get creative and receive feedback from others.

The great thing about it is that you get to see many interpretations of the same subject, which is very inspiring.

The added bonus is that you get a lot of interesting portraits of yourself out of it.

 Here are my first contributions.

My first "commission"

A couple of weeks ago I was given my first sort of commission.

I say "sort of" because I didn't actually get paid for it.

I did it as a favour for a friend who is preparing a surprise for her boyfriend.

She is compiling a book with poems he has written and wanted to include a portrait of him.

Apparently she had seen and liked my latest drawings on FB, so she asked me.

I haven't met him yet, but he looks like a very kind person.

Surprise mail art exchange

After the last mail art exchange, one of the organisers asked me if I wanted to do an "unofficial" exchange with her, which I happily agreed to.

This time it went to Belgium, and I thought I'd send a nice poinsettia, or Christmas Star, per mail.

I thought it was fitting for the season.

Like last time, I cut the shape of  the envelope in watercolour paper, which I folded once the drawing was done.

The only thing I was unable to control was the stamp.

They don't seem to have a lot of sensitivity for creative envelopes at the post office here: the woman just pasted the first stamp she got her hands on without even showing me first.

I think there was a football player on it; not very fitting.

I'm just glad she put an actual stamp on it, even if I had to insist to get it.

My creation arrived today appartently, so now I can show it here.

The front of the envelope

The back side