Hemek Hamatzleva - Jerusalem

I discovered a beautiful place I didn't know in Jerusalem, a greek monastery overlooking the valley of Hemek Hamatzleva. At first it looked very severe but what you see inside is not what you would have expected outside : the interesting rhythm of the different levels, the church is simply beautiful with a lot of colorful and naive paintings... We should definitely organize a meeting there with the group

View from the other side of the valley, from my car

Inside, minimalistic decoration in the dark, very graphical

In the church, many naive paintings of characters who seem to have interesting conversation :
- Do you have the recipe of the brownies ?
- Wait, I'm looking in my files

Rhythm

Rhythm

Safari zoo in Ramat Gan

Just before Pessah, I went for the first time to the zoo Safari in Ramat Gan. A big parc with wild animals just in the middle of the city… A great place to do portraits and meet interesting personnality

Charles Clore beach - 39th sketchcrawl

A great day to draw with the always growing group of Urban sketchers Israel ! The place offers a lot of different views : the beach of course but also the promenade with funny characters passing by or the Alma coffee shop where you can draw and have a snack. It's a long time I wanted to draw this alley of buildings, so typical to Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv promenade with a view of the Textile House building in the background

Tel Aviv promenade

This funny couple attracted the attention of many sketchers from the group

Hagit in the Alma coffee shop

A church in Yafo they recently repainted, it looks right now like a wedding cake…

Drawing people in the flea market of Yafo

Drawing people in the flea market is a constant source of inspiration… There are full of short stories that you can try to catch:  this one is getting bored in her shop, a young soldier having a breakfast with his mother, this handicapped young woman looking for clothes, working hard to keep her feminity in spite of her wheeling chair… and me trying to catch quickly these little moments in Yafo

Portraits

When you have a new baby at home, it's quite difficult to get your 2 hands free… Then, if you want to keep on drawing, you have to learn how to do it with a baby sleeping in your arm and even sometimes breathfeeding at the same time you're sketching !

Here are 2 sketches I did before baby was born… Portraits of her big brother of 2 years and a half old, sleeping (otherwise, he moves too much !)

Here is the new baby, Naya, one month

Then the family start to come to help you and you have new models…

My sister Virginie reading in bed

My mother Dominique

Again the big brother drawing in a restaurant in Batiam

Yafo during my son's nap

Here are 2 drawings I made during my son's nap, I drew from the car and had the idea to use it as a frame for the drawing...

Park of Yafo

Toam sleeps in the car while mummy is drawing, thanks darling !