"Your city - your story" Aurore in Jaffa

Here is my participation for Katrin Merle's sketchbook !

About specificity of city furnitures, one is the street lamps which design change according to the area of Tel Aviv… In North Tel Aviv street lamps look like snakes overlooking the people passing by…But I live in south Tel Aviv, in Jaffa : you may see different one in the port (first sketch) and in the old city… (second one). Here you'll find the old white stones they used to build with, coming from the Judea mountains around Jerusalem. Of course they don't use them anymore, but they try to respect the color when they renovate old building.

A bit of history about Jaffa (arabic) or Yafo (hebrew), meaning "The beauty" !
Jaffa was one of the main and oldest port in the history, more or less 3500 years old. This old lady was one of the main passage for business between the west and the East and Egyptian mentioned her in their papyrus. It's also present in the Old Testament telling the story of Jonas that takes place in Jaffa…

Many people passed by such as egyptians, vespasian, crusaders, ottoman empire, Napoleon's army, arabs, british… etc. and conquered Jaffa that has a long and bloody story that I'm not going to developp here more… The old city was destroyed few times (… earthquake, second world war) and rebuilt in the sixties, while the city hall of Tel Aviv planned to erase everything and came with buldozers (!) they just in time changed their mind and renovated this place that was the perfect location for dealers and all kind of "small business". Tel Aviv started being a neighboorhood of Jaffa and finally grew, grew grew… until Jaffa became the ancient part of Tel Aviv !!!

It's now beautiful again and tourists love this place almost as much as I do… I have my studio / gallery in the middle, I live nearby and this is one a the few places in Israel where Muslims arabs, Christian arabs and Jewish are living together, so it not rare to hear the calls for prayers at same time from churches, mosques and temples !

The port of Jaffa (sea behind my back)

Entry of the Old Jaffa part from the city, going in the direction of the port…
Behind my back the area of the flea market, you have discovered in my own sketchbook

People on the way

Here is my drawing for my book people on the way.. in German: "Menschen unterwegs"... I am trying to find out a translation to Hebrew.. and asked some Israeli friends.. and ended having strong discussions about it but no answer...you know what they say: two Israelis discuss and they ended with 3 different opinions..but in the other hand every language has expressions that are difficult to translate.

Urban Furniture

My last drawing for Katrin Merle's Sketchbook with the subject: Your city your story
Urban Furniture you would find around Schlesisches Tor, Kreuzberg, Berlin. I had a lot of trouble finding something to draw, then I realized that there where many interesting things around me that are quite unique to this neighbourhood. It made me wonder what would I find in Tel Aviv if I go around?

 
Do you have public waterfountains? or fire alarms in the streets?(this one does not work anymore) candy maschines? Advertising columns? or Taxi columns? (there is a phone inside, I didn't know that!) or how does your mailboxes look like?

Berlinale

For Katrin Merle's sketchbook I have to tell something about my city. It could be something personal or something historical or just an anecdote about my city. I have been a little late for my drawings.. But I managed to do some this weekend, because there is the Berlinale, what a great opportunity to tell something about Berlin. So I went to Potsdamer Platz (as a Berliner you never go there, is something for tourists) and catched some reporters doing some piece with the Theater in the background.

As you see I extended a little on the top right and left bottom, but leave some space on the right top, encouraging you to interact with my drawing.

"My favorite place" Baretto in Wrangel Kiez

Baretto is a nice cafe  in my street. People know each other here,
Watercolor on site. a watercolor for Detlef Surrey Sketchbook "my favorite place"

A walk in the flea market - Hallentrödelmarkt Berlin Treptow • Detlef

My first sketch in Aurore´s book.
Unfortunately, January is not the most pleasant month to draw flea markets in Berlin. :-(
So I chose the covered hall of the Hallentrödelmarkt in Berlin Treptow for my sketching.

People in Motion - Potsdamer Platz • Detlef

Berlin, Potsdamer Platz. Rush hour.

People hurrying across the huge place past the Café Caran, where I sit drawing in the warmth close to the window.






















The green street lights tower in the center is a replica of Europe's first traffic lights, erected in 1924 in an attempt to control the traffic passing through.