castle street

Another birthday present. There is a dramatic love story behind this picture. I think I will need to do some more painting soon. Painting is fun. For the moment I am stuck in Photoshop getting my portfolio ready. Off to Bolona next week!!!Yay!

nameless creature

I made this guy for a friend as a birthday present. He was pretty sad because he didn't have name and what is even worse his paws were shedding. Not very fortunate if you are a birthday present. I hope he is better now!

Japan!

After the devastating earthquake and tsunami Japan is struggling with a huge humanitarian crisis. They need our help. Maggy from Red Ted's Art is running an auction on her blog to help raise funds for victims of the Japan quake and she kindly agreed to have one of my prints put on auction there! The bears are happy that they can help.
You can take part in the auction by placing your bid in comments under the post. All details how to take part and how it works are described in detail here. If you win, all the money goes directly to Save the Children and you get the print. I cover the shipping cost. Simple as that!

Many thanks to Kate from Tastykaeru and Zoe from Playing by the Book for their help with organising the whole thing. Zoe is also running auctions on her blog too, like this one with a beautiful flower brooch by Tastykaeru.

finished!

I finished the dummy book! And I am back to normal mode now, which is very pleasant. It was particularly pleasant to go for a long walk on Sunday and see real people, real trees and real landscapes. I also got my reward (yes, the main reason I finished that book at all) in a form of grilled fish and white wine consumed in a beautiful place with live jazz music. The good thing is that even though I am allergic anything to do with pencil and photoshop, I still like the characters. They make me smile. A good sign I think.

And these tiny guys (that you might recognise) are for a competition. The brief was to make an illustration for front cover of a magazine about children's books.

a very productive weekend

This weekend I managed to draw 5 cats, 5 dogs, 3 mice, 1 parrot, I also baked 1 sourdough bread (from sourdough base I produced myself - good fun) and 6 wholemeal scones. I also opened running season - hooray, hooray! My book is advancing an it looks like I will be able to meet the deadline, which is next Sunday.
Now back to work!

sketching trips

Sketches from our recent drawing trips when I was being very lazy. With the second one I was feeling like making a sketch and then destroying it by adding more and more black until it dissapears. Fortunately, we had to leave before the sketch dissapeared. I think I will have to do some collage and photoshopping now.

My dummy book is progressing and it looks like I will be able to finish it before Bologna. I got most of images scanned and now I will need to make friends with photoshop again.

if: layers

I drew the badger because my mum asked me to. Badgers are cool. The spring hasn't come yet so he is wearing lots of layers.And I think he is missing a train.

magic pencil

I love pencils. I collect them. Every time I travel somewhere and visit a museum or a gallery I go to the gift shop and buy the cheapest and most basic pencil souvenir (or I ask friend to bring me some if they go somewhere exciting). I am always very disappointed if a museum does not have pencils or if they sell them for 5 euro each (like in Hagia Sophia in Istambul). And then when I draw with them I think about places I visited and people I met and I am more than sure that it affects my drawings. So I would pick up the edinburgh book festival pencil to draw my picture books, cartoon museum one if I want my drawing to be more comic style etc. I even have one with a citation from Tracy Emin but I have never used it. I am going to save it until I am fed up with my cute animals and I want to draw something very ugly.

Spent all day drawing killer plants and really enjoyed it!

if: sweater

Another quick sketch. A weasel this time.
It was two years ago. We noticed that dried fruit and nuts are mysteriously dissapearing from the jar we kept muesli in. It was supposed to be a fancy tropical muesli with plenty of exotic fruit and nuts but for some strange reasons there would be only not very exotic oats and bran flakes left in the jar. Somebody was stealing the fruit!
And I had to come up with that weasel story to clear myself from any suspicion.

a very engaging book

Another quick sketch from ages ago.
I have been busy furnishing flat for cat and dog recently, which is rather fun. I've got four double spreads to finish the dummy book and start producing final artwork. It is a little bit of a challenge as I try to be as playful as possible with colours, textures and techniques. A completely new area of exploration...
Yesterday I spent a very productive morning in my favourite continental cafe in stockbridge (they have very good cafe au lait and there is a marzipan soap in the bathroom!). I was teaching a dog to play golf. He was doing very well. Especially that I have no idea how to play golf.

The good news is that the spring is coming!!!