Author name: Machalek Rebeka

Bemutatkozás

Still in Denmark: A Mini Art Diary of Fading Light and Wild Color

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I’m still here. Still in Denmark, still watching the sky do whatever it wants.

If you’ve never lived somewhere with weather this moody, it’s hard to explain — one hour it’s bright enough to squint, the next the wind has pulled a grey blanket over everything and it feels like six in the evening at two in the afternoon. Danish autumn doesn’t ease you in. It negotiates with you daily, and it rarely tells you the terms in advance.

But that unpredictability is exactly what makes it so visually alive. Every walk through town hands me a slightly different palette — a wall that looked ochre yesterday reads almost pink today, a patch of grass that was electric spring-green a few weeks ago is already dulling into something more tired and golden. The light is getting shorter and lower, and it’s dragging longer shadows and stranger colors out of ordinary streets.

I didn’t want to just describe this shift in words. So I’m painting it, one small piece at a time.

The Project: A New Mini Art Print, Every Day

Over the coming days (and maybe weeks — depends how stubborn this season decides to be), I’ll be adding a brand-new mini gouache art print to this post. Each one is a tiny, real-time snapshot: a street corner, a color mood, a moment of light I caught before it changed again.

Think of this page less as a finished blog post and more as a living sketchbook — check back and there will be something new. I’ll date each piece and add a line or two about what I was noticing that day: the color, the weather, the small detail that made me stop and paint it.

Bookmark this page if you want to follow the season unfold in real time.

The Diary

Day 1 — 6 September 2026

mini gouache painting of pink flowers in a terracotta pot on a Danish street
mini gouache painting of a red garden chair against a warm brick wall
mini gouache painting of a red bistro chair against a warm brick wall
mini gouache painting of a red iron garden chair against a brick wall

Three small scenes from today’s walk — the pale pink flowers softening a stark brick wall, a bright red chair waiting on cobblestones, and the deep, almost burgundy light that swallowed the street by late afternoon. The color kept shifting between warm and dramatic within the same hour.

BlogBlog

Old Objects, Old Stories — Sketching My Mother’s World

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Some of my best urban sketching inspiration comes not from the street — but from the quiet corners of someone’s home.
I recently spent time at my mother’s place. Her home is filled with old objects — a chair here, a small table there — many of them inherited from her own mother. Things that have survived decades, moved from house to house, and somehow kept their quiet dignity.
We talked for hours. She told me stories from her childhood — things I had never heard before, or had forgotten. We poured a glass of wine. We laughed. We remembered.
And in the middle of all that warmth, I picked up my sketchbook.
That old chair in the corner — the one with the carved legs and the worn upholstery — it wasn’t just furniture anymore. It was a witness. It had been in the room for all those years, holding people, holding stories.
Urban sketching, for me, is not only about cities and architecture. It’s about capturing the soul of a place. And sometimes the most soulful places are the quietest ones.
This sketch is available as a digital download in my Etsy shop.

Bemutatkozás

,How I Started Urban Sketching — From Oil Paintings to Sketchbooks on the Street

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My journey into urban sketching started the way many things do — not with a grand plan, but with paying attention.

I studied fine arts at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest. Painting was my world — oil on canvas, studio light, careful composition. But something shifted when I started watching people.

I worked at a shop, and whenever there was a quiet moment, I found myself studying the faces passing by the window. A particular tilt of someone’s head. The way a stranger carried themselves in the rain. These micro-moments — just a few seconds long — started turning into sketches. Then the sketches turned into oil paintings. And somewhere in that process, I realized: the sketch itself was the thing I loved most.

That’s how the sketchbook became my main tool. No studio needed. The street, a café, a square — anywhere people move through a space becomes a place to draw. Urban sketching is exactly that: going out into the world with a pen or brush, and capturing what you see before it disappears.

In 2022, some of my work was shown in a window exhibition in my hometown — paintings that started as those quick street observations. It felt like a full circle moment.

Now I sketch everywhere I go. Most recently, I spent time in Denmark, filling pages with new places and new faces. This blog is my digital sketchbook — where I share what I see, how I work, and what I’m learning along the way.

If you’re curious about urban sketching — whether you’re just starting out or looking for inspiration — I’m glad you’re here.

Bemutatkozás

​Szia! Örülök hogy itt vagy!

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​Történetem 2025 novemberében kezdődött, amikor a komfortzónámat hátrahagyva Dániába költöztem szeretett hazámból, Magyarországról. Nem teljesen saját elhatározásból tettem: úgy mondanám inkább hogy egy majdnem egy évre szóló helyettesítő munkát vállalt el férjem, és mit volt mit tenni, én is vállaltam vele a kalandot. Azzal a feltétellel, hogy csak akkor költözöm, ha békén hagy a művészetemben, ami az otthoni mindennapok és megrögzött napi rutin mellet valahogy az évek során kissé háttérbe szorult.

A vázlatkészítés számomra a lényeg megragadása a gyors megfigyelésen keresztül. Itt nem a tökéletesség a cél, hanem az érzelem és a pillanat megélése.

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