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
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?.... ...
5 things that happen when you carry a sketchbook with you
I get a lot of questions about how to make best progress in drawing and painting. I think the best way is to "play" and experiment regularly in a sketchbook! A sketchbook will give your inner artist some space to grow and will help you to find your own style, and...
Progress, not perfection
Hello my dear! Here's another video I made in Kanazawa. It's the same tea house as in the previous video, but seen from the other side of the lake. First I made the drawing in pencil (I use Palomino Blackwing pencil medium hard graphite.) and then I started...
Have a beautiful end of the year
Hello my dearest! Are you preparing your resolutions for the new year? I always make a huge list of what I plan to do better in the coming new year and guess what ? I'm usually too ambitious and also not so very kind for myself and then of course at the end of...
Sketching Japan
Hello my dearest ! I just came back from Japan ! It was a wonderful breath of fresh air! I nearly thought I wouldn’t make it to the plane, as I was in a great mess before leaving: I was drowning in problems at the office…. I felt really sick before leaving and...
Sketch with your emotions 🙂
“To make art you need your eyes, your hands and your HEART. It’s your heart that makes you choose your colours. Your emotional side.” And : "What does the picture need?" Choose your colours according to your mood and according to what the picture needs. This is the...
How about drawing with a twig ?
The great Malaysian artist Ch’ng Kiah Kiean came sketching in Belgium before heading to the urbansketchers symposium in Amsterdam in July and guess what? Serge, my darling husband, made a video of him sketching and I'm going to share it with you so you can admire the...
It’s all about playing
As Paul Wang was in Europe for the symposium I hosted a workshop for him in Antwerp and a sketchcrawl in Ghent.
We were all very excited to learn from him.
Paul is a very generous teacher. I share a video from the workshop and some takeaways, but if you have the chance to take one of his workshops please go for it, because you’ll learn so much !
Takeaways from the Amsterdam Urbansketching Symposium
workshop with Paul Wang Hi everybody! I just came home from the 10th Urbansketchers symposium in Amsterdam, full of creative energy! I’m fully boosted from these over 1000 happy creatives from 47 different countries!! I had some great workshops from which I want to...
Art supplies to find your super power
Summer started! Well, at least if you're in the same hemisphere as me in Brussels. :)With the summer comes an air of liberty, excitement and restlessness of Fomo (fear of missing out) : I’m having already a lot on my todo-list for this summer- again...
Simply Draw & Paint it in France, en français
Hello ! This is going to be exceptionnally a french post, for my urbansketching workshop in France, at Ile-de-Ré on 22nd august! I have to great opportunity to visit a dear friend there, and so give this workshop... It will mainly be in french, but of...
How to get the most out of art workshops
It's summer ! I love that time of the year because it's a time where people get some sunshine and are more smiling 🙂 The light gives me energy! It's also time to slow down for a lot of people, because it's hot, and the schools are closed, so the cities are more...
How to improve your observation drawing
It all started with some frustrating bad-looking lines ... How do you make your hand put a "good-looking" drawing on the paper when there's too much to look at ?As I was learning Yukiko, the japanese violin player I talked about in my previous blogpost, to...
Talent vs work
I had an interesting experience, giving my "Simply Draw it" urbansketching workshops for beginners this spring. I teach what I myself most need to learn, and learn much from the participants as well. I also learn a lot from the questions you ask me!After...
Urbansketching cherry blossoms in full bloom
They were in full bloom last sunday, the big light pink cherry blossom balls on the old japanese trees in the garden town Le Logis Floréal in Brussels. In the 1920's these trees were send over straight from Japan, when the garden town was finished.They're...
How to quick sketch cherry blossoms
It's that time of the year again: cherry blossoms are blooming.In Brussels we're lucky to have several varieties of blossom trees: some blooming earlier then others. So we have a large time lapse to go sketching.I went sketching last weekend and my darling...
Where do your ideas come from?
My head is empty and my hand is not doing what I want. And I don't know what I want. The result is not OK. I lost it, it seems...I make drawing after drawing since last week and an empty feeling invades me and a warm shame washes over me: I hate what I...
Simply Draw & Paint it – NEW DATES
For those interested : here we go again with the "Simply Draw it" workshop, springtime version :-DAUSSI EN FRANCAISOOK IN HET NEDERLANDSAn introduction for those who don't know the workshop:Being a child I always wanted to become an artist, but my parents...
How to have a great 2019, and be ready to register #uskamsterdam2019 😊
♥ A very happy new year to you all ! ♥ I wish you a lot of creative challenges, and time for what’s important in your life! Personally I try to disconnect from my phone and computer even more, to be able to draw and paint more. I’m working on...
Thank you so much !
It's that time of the year again...The year is stumbling across the finishing line, which is always a great time to reflect on how things are going, and planning for the year ahead. How was your year 2018?It has been a quite violent year again: terrible...
