Today's feature is more about on a imaginary drawing of a market square in Belgium's city. This imaginary drawing is called "Grand Place" and is illustrated by a talented illustrator from Netherlands, Stefan Bleekrode. Read on and take a time to! look at how creative his imagination is through his drawing. Have fun!

'Grand' Place' is an imaginary drawing of a market square in a city in Belgium. The architecture and street layout closely resemble the area around the 'Grand' Place' in Brussels, a square famous for its sumptuous display of 17th century architecture. This drawing was the result of a one day visit to Brussels and Antwerp last January in search of new ideas. Although this drawing was initially meant to be little more than a study for a large drawing of a city in Belgium, I was pleased enough with the result half way into the drawing to go all the way and turn it into a little artwork in its own right.

- Stefan Bleekrode

In the foreground you can see the typical mixture of medieval and 19th century Belgian inner city architecture, a domed shopping arcade, art nouveau houses next to 16th century guild houses. Towards the middle section a fine Market square (the focal point of most Belgian towns) can be seen. There are 17th century Guild houses and two medieval Gothic structures; a city hall with belfry on the left and another public building on the right, only the roof is clearly visible.

- Stefan Bleekrode

Behind the Market square a nineteenth century boulevard can just be discerned. For the most part I made this drawing from memory although I used some reference material for the Gothic buildings on the market square. Please see some images of Brussels below to get an idea what it really looks like.
Although meant to be a study, now I consider this one to be one of the finer small drawings I made. Although I make every piece for my self initially, just for the sake of enjoyment and interest, this piece will probably go on display at a future exhibition with the Frank Welkenhuysen gallery later this year.
For this drawing I used pencil, china ink, dipping pens and watercolour for shadows. The paper used is arches medium 300 grams. It took me some three weeks and 50 hours to do this drawing mostly during the morning or after I returned home from my studio.

- Stefan Bleekrode

Stefan Bleekrode

Stefan Bleekrode is a 29 year old illustrator from Eindhoven, the Netherlands. He started drawing ever since he could hold a pencil. Since 2004, he has been working as a fine artist. Next to these intricate cityscape drawing, he also do paintings in watercolour and sometimes in oil or egg tempera. After highschool, he briefly visited art school in 2003 although he left after just three months and became entirely self-taught through numerous gallery and museum visits, travels abroad and studies of the old masters and impressionist art. Next to his art, he used to work on numerous jobs during the day up to 2013 to provide the funds needed to support himself and to travel abroad. Since 2004, he has traveled far and wide across the US and Canada and most of Europe. Also, he stayed for prolong periods of time in London, Switzerland, Hungary and Romania to paint or to find inspiration for his art. Since late August 2013, when he quit his day-time job, he can make a living of his art. He has been exhibiting his work on a regular basis since 2007 in Holland and occasionally abroad in the UK, Belgium and Switzerland. After some short periods at smaller galleries, he's represented since early 2014 by the Frank Welkenhuysen Gallery in Utrecht, the Netherlands, one of Hollands' better known galleries. You can find more of his works on his Behance profile or website.