caffeine feline

I drew a lion...

I like lions... especially today

I don't know why...

Sorry 'bout the coffee stain

BUT

if it wasn't for coffee

there would be no lion tonight

update:

had to take a photo again in the morning

WHY oh WHY

do all photos taken at night look terrible?

even when I use the scanner?

the scanner can't know what time of day it is, surely!

Motives

You don't look silly, dear! You look mysterious!

Now, let's go to that fancy dress party.

I've heard they'll be serving wine...

if we're patient, we can have coq au vin

or  souris au vin

or even lapin au vin!

ummm... a dance?

    action <> reaction

 cause <> effect

||

V

influence

Lately

I've been under a strong influence of a motion bug

that's been nesting in my mind

...

scary

...

and it always starts so innocently

....

sketches can be tricky

if left to do what they wish

I simply had to do it

Some drawings are cute, some drawings are sweet or scary or sad. I always loved drawings... but sometimes I happen to see a picture that really speaks to me... then... I don't need any effort at all to see it wink, smile, talk... its personality, its story, it's all there... that's whyyyy... one day, I decided to try and master a skill to help those critters talk to the rest of the world the same way...

I'm so faaaar from even scratching the surface of animation, but I love learning, I enjoy every step of it... If you want to see some of my first attempts click here. I'm obviously just a self-tough enthusiast... I would be so happy to know if you have any comment or suggestion.

Now, without further ado...

Let me introduce to you Baby Blue Owl.

I've met this feathery sweetie through our mutual friend, Heidi. Her blog is adorable, and she's an amazingly talented artist. Everything she ever draws makes me giggle and smile.

She wrote with so much love about the Owlish behaviour of B.B.Owl and other owlish friends, I fell in love with them... You can meet them too, of course, just click here.

The sweetest little owl ever, don't you think? :D

papyrus experiment

This is my crazy contraption for drying papyrus sheets:

Only a couple of weeks ago I discovered papyrus, and fell in love with it.

Here's a little trick:

Papyrus is amazing as it is, but if you dip it in oil for a day, and let it dry, it changes the texture, becomes a bit more transparent and rubbery. I was told that if I put a bit of oil paint into oil, papyrus will keep it's transparency, only get a light tone of the colour. That will be my next experiment :)

...and then I tested it...

I made all these photos with my Canon scanner, no Photoshop tweaking.

embarrassing sketches

sulking cats

OK, so I've just finished an illustration on a slightly bigger paper format (50cm * 70cm) and now I'm stuck. It happens so often, I might have to come up with a name for that condition... Stuckitis… What-now-itis… I'm not sure is it because "I could never do it again", or is it because I'm too self-criticizing and I don't like the drawing I've finished...

Well, I don't think it's either one. Most of the time, I have SO many new ideas that I simply can't pick one. I can't focus, so they're all in my head... all at once... buzzing and flapping and whizzing...

carnival

Ideas are like smells, they're there, I can feel them, I know them quite intimately, they're packed with sensations and motion, but when I start sketching, they become unreachable. I want to put them all on paper, and sketches always turn out to be beyond disappointing.

I'm a terrible starter.

couch potato

No, let me rephrase that! I'm great at starting at least ten things at once, and then not doing any of them... which is a shame. The best part… what I like most about drawing… is the bit after I'd started something, and passed that second phase. If I get that far, I land in some amazing space where's no time, or thoughts... I become my pencils and paints, and that feeling is the reason why I draw at all.

I hate all my drawings, but I love making them!

Sketches are my biggest embarrassment. I used to love sketching, but now… uh… I cringe when I see unrefined lines, bad proportions, somewhat incorrect perspective… I need to feel that I’m in control, so I start fixing my sketches, and keep fixing them till they stop being sketches.

portraits

Anyway… this time I present you a few pages from my poor little moleskine. They will stay as they are. Paper is too thin, it simply wouldn’t survive my “corrections”.

IF swell

swell...

first thing that came to mind was flying... I don't know why... flying the same way fish fly in water... as if there was a happy bubble inside my chest, so I could inhale loads and loads of joy, and when it feels I could burst, I'd lift off and fly away, finding bubbles of warm feelings to floating from one lovely thought to another. 

It was only once that I dreamt I was flying, and it wasn't even high, it was like hoovering through a forest, less than  a meter avow the ground.
But I keep making drawings of flying... away...

Away

sailing in the sea of bewitching art-supplies

I always thought of it as something used for making fake-old-wannabe-Egyptian-outrageously-overpriced souvenirs.
I was so wrong!

A few days ago, I was in my favourite art-supplies shop.
That place amazes me. It's tiny but so much like Sport Billy's bag. I love rummaging around. Just as it happens, it's in the same street as the hospital where I was born. I think that's pretty cool :)
So, I was interested in everything, asking millions of questions to the lovely man who runs the shop, as I always do. He always gives me very interesting advice. Proper old-fashioned customer care. And then, while chatting

I have discovered papyrus!
I'm surprised I didn't see it before.
Perfectly flat, yet textured, granulated, shiny, robust and thick but transparent. I honestly gasped when I touched it! I love it! It's perfect... but I'm still not sure what it's perfect for... original idea was to draw with 0.1mm rapidographs in black ink.
Although, I still haven't tried out the trick that the shop-keeper told me, how to make papyrus even more special... I will tell you all about it once I test it ;)
Anyway... this is my first papyrus drawing... a bit altered in Photoshop.

Sailing

owl love

my latest fascination

...owls... 

This little girl's name is Tara.

Isn't she adorable? 

♥ ❤ ♥ 

tea-party

M. Léo is a kind and nice person, but he's very serious. Luckily, he's aware of that, so once in a while he organizes nice little soirées to break the routine. On those occasions, he tries to look sweet and approachable. He tries very hard, and that's wholeheartedly appreciated by his peers... that is, by those who get to be invited to come, but sometimes some do not get the invitation, if they had done something very wrong, like eye-laser-beam-burn a poor little alligator and end up in jail, for life, till M. Léo comes to help them escape...

M. Léo - soirée

randez-vous

M. Léo is trying to have some private life.

M. Léo qui donne randez-vous

radioactive

M. Léo does get some help... occasionally. This little chore is their favourite. They don't like vacuuming though... or washing up...

M. Léo et les corvées

walkies

It was a lovely day, so M. Léo took them all out for a walk... one at a time... Poor things tend to get overexcited too easily when together.

M. Léo qui se promène

Launch

M. Léo is ever so nice, always willing to help... selflessly...

M. Léo qui lance

leisure activities

After a hard days's work, M. Léo likes to dance a bit to relax. He is especially fond of La Primavera from Vivaldi's Le quattro stagioni.

M. Léo qui danse

you figure it out

I've decided not to apologize for this...

Cruel?

Cold?

Heartless?

Then how do you think M. Léo feels having to be the one to do it... day in and day out...

M. Léo at work

IF swept

I've been thinking too much lately... about life, stuff, the importance of different... stuff...
"Fun?" ... -No, not really...

out of control

I started this doodle yesterday. It was just a little floating-flying-wiggly boy, and then another one, and another one, and then it felt like they need some space to connect them, but only in a way, not really... and it was all done in ink, then graphite and colours came... and some acrylics, for heaviness... and I didn't like it... any of it... at all, so I kept adding... ore colour came, and pointilistic style shading...

Yeah, I've become a bit obsessive... that's why it's going online, to fixate it in time as it is, so working on it loses any sense, before I start analysing it/self-analysing whirlpool. Now I'm free to stop! Yeeeey...

bored

I was having so much fun, had no time to draw AT ALL all week... and I thought drawing was all I'd do... ah, well... on my way home, my flight was late, and I finally used that sketchbook I'd been carrying all along... it started with the little houses you can see far in the distance from Charleroi, but some lady kept looking at what I'd been doing... I don't like that, makes me feel self-conscious, so I "ate the houses" to scare her off, but it didn't work, so ... I was just 'bout to draw the plane, and make it explode when they called us to board...

another octopus

this is work in progress

And I'm not a one man show this time... I actually have a little elf to help me. We're cooking up something amazing... and we know what it is... or I think we know... I think... you never really know with elves.
And until it's finished, this initial drawing is all you'll see ...

Mwa-ha-ha-ha (evil scientist's laughter)... that was the elf, not me!