Simply Draw & Paint it
Hi !
Here I share my thoughts about living a creative life, about how I found more and more fun and joy in making art and looking for creativity by getting rid of my demons like fear, perfectionism, what-might-other-people-think, ugliness (what’s that anyway?), Art with a big A, dogma’s …. Everybody is an artist and everybody is creative!
Please feel free to share your story in the comments in my posts! I read all the comments and I would love to hear from you!
Tell me your story here: info @ barbaraluel.com

Let’s take time to see
Do you take time to look and see carefully? Be the drawing subject, become the flower, become the house, be the sunset you want to draw... Be here, be now, be present. Drawing is an active meditation: a feeling of being, of connecting, of time stopping to wonder. The...
Creative challenges in difficult times
Drawing in difficult times... For some of us the confinement is finished, but for a lot of people life is still very difficult. I was mainly following the urbansketchers movement, and drawing has meant a lot to many people in recent months - to those who were stuck at...
Looking for change
I want to share this beautiful text with you from Leslie Dwight:
What if 2020 isn’t cancelled?
What if 2020 is the year we’ve been waiting for?
A year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw –
That it finally forces us to grow.
A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us from ignorant slumber.
A year we finally accept the need for change.
Declare change. Work for change. Become the change.
A year we finally band together, instead of pushing each other further apart.
2020 isn’t cancelled, but rather
the most important year of them all.
End of confinement
Confinement is coming to an end here in Belgium…. But I don’t want to ... I had plenty of things I wanted to do, and I wanted to rest also, and plenty of things to CREATE, and I didn’t do it! I want more time of confinement… (I realize that I’m in a luxury...
Confinement days 22 – 28: 4th sketchbook
Hello ! How are you feeling today? Today is day 28 of the confinement . I ended my 3rd leporello sketchbook with Camille again, taking a sun bath on the stairs. The video is below. I won't share all the videos in this blogpost, but you can see them on my Youtube...
Days 18 to 21 of the confinement sketchbook
Day 18 : for my studio, my favourite place of course with my old drawing table... A drawing in pencil and watercolour Day 19 corona confinement sketchbook : my creative neighbors musical evenings Every night at 8pm we meet outside with the neighbors at what started as...
Days 16 & 17: sketching the bathroom
Here's a sketch from my bathroom ! There's a lot to draw, and I didn't clean up before drawing! We take the showers in the bath. There's no seperate shower, and because the bath is not build between two walls, we didn't manage to put a shower curtain... So we splash...
Starting the 3rd confinement sketchbook
Day of confinement 14 is quite a bad day. I'm very restless and don't feel like sketching... OMG ! I was struggling to force myself to make this video ! If I didn't receive so many cheers from you for my videos I think I'd given up.... I was not at all in the mood!...
#CREATE confinement sketchbook 13
As a last sketch in this second confinement concertina sketchbook I painted my cat, taking a nap on the radiator under my drawing table I first made a pencil sketch of the main shapes, and then some fine ballpoint lines for the more detailed stuff on the window sill....
#CREATE corona sketchbook 11 & 12
Here are two more sketches, from yesterday and today. I try to alternate inside views with outside views. As I miss big dinners with our friends, I wanted to draw a view towards the dining table... the dining table with empty chairs waiting for the friends to come...
#CREATE corona sketchbook 9&10
For this second sketchbook I try to very more between inside subjects and outside sujects, ans some techniques. I painted a detail of a door, and then my art supplies... Actually when I paint my art supplies it means that I'm tired and out of inspiration... 😉 ...
#CREATE corona sketchbook 8
Hello everyone ! If you're reading this during this Corona virus pandemic, wherever in the world you are right now : PLEASE STAY SAFE, stay as far away as possible from other people ! This virus IS NOT A SIMPLE FLU ! You can find testimonies from people in Italy and...
#CREATE corona sketchbook 7
Helloo! How are you today? Here's a beautifu fresh spring sunshine! I'm very lucky. It makes this confinement less gloomy! I only have a very small piece of a page left to finish this concertina sketchbook, so I have to make something that fits...
#CREATE corona sketchbook 6
👋👋👋these are the houses of my dear neighbours 🌸🌸🌸 Every evening we try to go and clap and make music at the windows and doors to thank the healthcare workers. It's a joy to live in front of a rock guitarist who takes his...
#CREATE Corona sketchbook 5
Today I wanted to make a sketch of my living room, while Camille, my cat, was peacefully sleeping in a corner of the couch. The couch is very red, with white blankets on it to protect it from cat hair and from friends spilling wine and food on it 😉 I drew on the...
#CREATE corona sketchbook 4
Another challenge of being confined at home is trying not to gain too much weight! Usually I bike to the office and move a lot... now I'm just sitting at home, eating, with a gass of wine and chocolate.... So I started fitnessing at home with online videos, and I make...
#CREATE Corona sketchbook 3
Day 3 confined at home.... I didn't know I was so tired!! Now that I'm staying home I feel it.... When we run to work everyday we just keep going and don't dare to slow down: we feel guilty when we slow down and want to work less... Why? Because I've learned that I...
#CREATE Corona sketchbook 2
Here's the first sketch in this concertina (accordeon) sketchbook. It's a sketchbook by Sennelier, with nice thick paper, called "USK book" (Urbansketching book). The paper is 340 g thick and you can paint with mixed media on it: it takes water quite well. It's...
#CREATE Corona sketchbook 1
How are you doing? Are you confined at home like I am ? I'm supposed to work at home, but with all building sites stopping one by one, and projects slowing down, I'm actually getting out of work... This is also a dangerous time for my architecture office because we...
Kisetsu 🌸🌸🌸
Hello my dearest ! I’m so excited my book with drawings of Japan is finally published ! Excited and afraid… afraid people won’t like it and won’t buy it of course… Is it good enough? Is it beautiful enough? Did I leave some typing errors in the texts?.... ...