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