We had the good fortune of connecting with Albert Kiefer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Albert, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Making pictures has always been on my mind since when I was a child. It was the ideal way for me to express myself. So I wanted to become active in a profession that allowed me to use my skills and at the same time earn my living.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Apart from doing digital visualization work I have started creating traditional sketches of architecture from places all over the world, with color markers. In 2016 I started from zero and developed my personal sketching style over the last seven years. My drive was to train my traditional sketching skills again. I wanted to achieve that by creating at least one sketch every day. Since I do very precise work when I work on the computer, I wanted my sketching art to be not perfect at all, but very loose and expressive. No construction lines, no pencil pre-sketching or erasers. Just immediate ink on paper, followed by coloring with markers. Slowly over time, my art was picked up very positively by the Instagram community and at the time of this writing I have 253K followers. This success has also landed me a great teaching opportunity on the international Domestika online platform where I now have a best selling course where I teach my sketching method. What I want the world to know is thatnothing needs to be perfect! Make your sketches! Every new sketch is a wonderful opportunity to improve your skills and a very rich visual world will open up around you!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If a friend from out of town visited, I would take him to some of the heritage places that show the rich past of my city. From there, I would take them into the local park where there’s a great place to chat and have a very nice coffee and lunch. Of course I’d show them one of the best record stores in my country. So much music to discover there. And in the evening I’d take them for a nice ice cream in our small harbour area.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Boy Bastiaens. He has been my mentor and close personal friend for over thirty years

Website: https://www.housesketcher.nl

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/housesketcher/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@housesketcher

Other: https://www.domestika.org/en/courses/3675-expressive-architectural-sketching-with-colored-markers/housesketcher

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutLA is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.