The good, the bad and the ugly – sketching at the Atarim Square

by Marina Grechanik, in Tel Aviv, Israel

There are some places in Tel Aviv I connected to. They aren’t the prettiest ones, but they got some special mood or energy. Atarim Square is one of them. Weird and almost ugly square, located near the beach in Tel Aviv, two levels above sea level, connected to the promenade and to Sderot Ben-Gurion. The square was build in the late 1970s, today almost abandoned, filled by graffiti, being crossed by tourists, joggers, dog walkers and prostitutes – all these add to the atmosphere.

We met at the square for our last Sketchcrawl, and it was interesting to hear people’s personal connections to this place – some of them remembered the times when it was build!

And of course, it was so cool to see how different everyone see this place through theirs sketches!

Here are my points of view on this place:

everybody included in their sketches those strange mushrooms

soldier checking on his cellphone, who left after a few minutes, and the “Colosseum” on the background

steps leading to the promenade

sketch I did a few weeks before, capturing one of the colorful graffiti