Merry X!

(X=Christmas, Hanukkah or whatever). Season Greetings! or Happy Holidays! if you prefer. This is an oldie I made some months ago, but since it was the end of the summer I've taken now the licence to post it again (with some photoshopping) for this season.
Merry X to you all!

Bologna, Sala Borsa Library

La Sala Borsa (literally Stock Exchange Room) is a fantastic library with a huge ammount of batches, specially on the children and teenage section. But it's also an outstanding building which entrance is situaded about 20 meters far from the famous Fontana del Nettuno. As you can guess from the name, it has not always been a library: from 1870s (in which it was built) to the World War II it was Bologna's stock exchange room . Afterwards it became a sports arena till 2001 in which the library was inaugurated. But the most amazing thing about this places is that, under the transparent floor, it's still possible to see some remains of Felsina, the name that the etruscans gave to the city when thsy founded it on the 6th century BC.

Bologna, Piazza Minghetti

This was one of our stops on the last SketchCrawl (october 25).
Piazza Minghetti is not one of my favorite places in Bologna: it's the center of the financial, posh and snooty Bologna, anyway (as the whole Bologna) it has some elegant, romantic and decadent charm.


This first sketch shows a fat man that said rude nonsenses to everyone that passed near him, seemed not to be in his right mind. The following one is a detail of the huge plane tree in the center of the square. It always take my attention much more than the buidings.

Brush drawing has its own grammar and its own rhetoric, the hand holds the brush but it immediately takes the floor (I'd better say it takes the paper) and tells most of the message.

Street concert in Cremona

A couple of months ago I've been in Cremona with family and some friends. Cremona is the hometown of Stradivari, Guarneri, Amati... let's say it's the hometown of the violin. Music, mainly string music is everywhere. In other towns the signs in the street corners lead you to monuments, churches, museums... in Cremona signs lead you to the different luthiers' workshops. There are many of them, from many countries. Some of them keep the doors open so you can enter the workshop, see them at work and take some photos. Musicians from all over the world come here to commission their instruments.
At some moment we obviously came across with a bandstand in which a little group of young musicians played (really fine) Haendel's "Lascia ch'io pianga"...

Urban Sketchers

Urban Sketchers is a colective blog recently created by my pal Gabi Campanario in wich artists from all over the world post sketches of the life in their respective cities. Gabi was kind enough to invite me to join he group and here is mi first contribution.

It's rainy in Bologna so my first contribution for Urban Sketchers has been made comfortably drawing with the sketchbook leaning over the kitchen table. I tried to catch a little piece of blue sky between the clouds that put some strange colors on the nearby houses. I had already taken this view here, but then I looked straight from the window over the hills, this is about 45º to the left and much less bucolic. The center of the image is an strange military property, somekind of Area 51 alla bolognese. I've lived in this house for 3 years and I've seen just a couple of big trucks entering or leaving it. It's forbidden to park or even stop near and when somebody does it a soldier materializes as teletransported, throws you out and disappear. That's all the human life you can see around. You can't film or take photos but there are bills that advice you that they film and take photos of the surroundings. I imagine everyting is located underground because all you can see is a couple of little huts between some lonely trees.

À la Biennale du Carnet de Voyage

Last weekend I went to Clermont-Ferrand for the 9th Biennale du Carnet de Voyage. I had been invited to show my sketchbooks and it was my first exhibition, I mean not my first in Clermont-Ferrand but the first in my life. I had never shown my drawings to anybody but family and friends (blogging is not the same, it's like hitting and running, you don't see the faces of the people looking at your work).


I felt like a kid with a new toy, it was absolutely amazing. Seeing people round my table leafing through my sketchbooks (often from the first to the last page!) was unbelievable to me...

...but the best was to hear some of them laughing (I'm not kidding!) with my cartoons. Now I understand comedians when they say make 'em laugh: I'ts one of the greatest sensations I've ever felt.
I've posted many other pics here, and as you can see on them, every lunch ended sketching over the tablecloths: with pens, brushes, ink but also with wine, sauce, forks, fingers...
I learnt so much, I knew lots of great artists, some editors and many funny and nice people.
I'd like to go back next year!

I also found the time to make some sketches, here they are:


At Bologna Airport before the departure.


At the Lyon-Part Dieu Station.


On the train between Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand.


At the Clermont-Ferrand Station.


The last day I had some hours in Lyon and I took a walk in the Vieux Lyon (really nice!)


This is the brasserie La Gargouille where I took a fantastic lyonnaise salad.


This the view of the Saône river from the Bonaparte bridge.
It was a sunny day but the wind blew so hard and it was really difficult to draw.

...That's all folks!
Next year in Clermont-Ferrand!

20th Worldwide SketchCrawl in Bologna

These are the sketches I made last saturday in Bologna during the 20th SketchCrawl. I had to deliver a job so I must work all night on friday, I went to bed at 7:00, woke up at 9:00 took a shower and went to Piazza San Francesco were our first meeting took place. It was a funny day (as every SketchCrawl) and I forgot my tiredness till I came home (and went to bed at 9:00 and slept 11 hours in a row). More stuff here.

France's portrait

This is my contribution to France's japanese Moleskine for the Moly_X_12.
France is one of my first loves since I started to navigate in search of sketch junkies in april 2007. I've always admired her portraits, her cars, her style, her technique... When I had to draw on her sketchbook, I decided to make this humble joke (just to demonstrate she's inimitable).
I used some Pigma Microns and a Copic Drawing pen for the blacks and a Faber Castell OHP-PLUS 1523 for the green.

Summer sketches

Sketches made in Marilleva (Trento), Barberino Val D'Elsa (Firenze) and Ferrara between august 8 and 31, 2008.

Old Diary

Some days ago I found this pages in an old 2004 diary. After the oldies of the previous post, here I am again scratching he bottom of the barrel.
Not a so fertile season.

This is a particular doodles page since I tried to draw just faces. When I lost count there were more than 50 (many of them are really hidden).


These are sketches for a character I was working on in 2004...


...and this is just a page of doodles.

Oldies

Some new old drawings:

This was made about 1984 and it's one of my very few brush drawings before... 2008!





These 4 pages of doodles were made about january 1993.
I remember those were really happy days.


This was drawn on march 1997 on a trip to Bologna.
At that time I didn't know that 4 years after I'd move to live less than 2 km far from this park.

Garabatos (3rd issue)

Previous:
1st issue
2nd issue

Update

This is a sketchbook that was in my pocket this spring, from middle april till the end of june. Actually it's a moleskine notebook someone gave me for Chrsitmas a couple of years ago, but since I didn't find a better use, I decided to fill it with quick brush sketches.

100th post

I started this sketchbook in the airport on my last vacation, but when I turned back home it wasn't finished (I drew the last pages only last week). This is a little movie of the whole sketchbook.
You can leaf through a better version of the vacation pages here.



This is my 100th post.
I opened this blog on 2006 but its real life started on june 2007 when I discovered EDM. It was a really great moment for my blog and so was for my drawing activity... and for me.
Thank you all.

Father

I don't use to make portraits. I must recognize I'm afraid of failing the resemblance and so, when I draw people I pay attention to gestures and attitudes leaving resemblance aside (I'd like to have France's eye for portraits!). Anyways, I'm quite proud of this one. My father was solving a crossword puzzle near the swimming pool and I made a very fast scribble (less than a minute) with a Pentel GFKP brush pen. I was really surprised of the (lucky) resemblance on such a quick sketch and I put immediately some watercolor touches. The whole drawing took about 5 minutes. I don't know if I really "catched the moment" as it's used to be said for photographies, but I sure can relive the whole scene when I see it.
The whole sketchbook can be seen here.

Some days in Javea

Some days ago I came back after a little trip to Javea, a little town on the east of Spain: beach, sun, swimming, good food (we were in the middle of the paella land), and obviously... sketches.
These are taken from a little sketchbook I started in the airport (and almost finished at the end of the trip).
Click on the image to see it bigger.

Four months have passed since I posted my last EDM challenge, and even if it seems I don't follow the thread anymore, I think this blog keep on beeing always that thread. Thank you EDMers. This sketch is the 9th of a series I started a year ago (and I don't know when I'll finish).

Sketched Memories (again)

I often post several drawings and I've always wanted the chance to leaf through them. It's because of this that I've always missed issuu, before I knew about it, even before it existed. I'll let pass for most of my multiple-drawing posts, but I couldn't lose the opportunity of publish again this pages as actual pages.
The first image of this memories came unexpectedly to my mind and I had the sudden impulse of drawing it on the travel journal I had just started (it was summer 2004 and I was about to depart to the Dolomites and Croatia). Few days after I decided to start another sketchbook for my travel drawings and keep this just for memories. I havent drawn on it since june 2007 but I keep on taking notes. Of course this is not a finished work.
A little movie of the whole sketchbook can be seen here, and there are better still images here.

Click on the image to see it bigger.

Nowhere Land

This is my contribution to Gabi's japanese moleskine for the Moly_X_12. I drew this with some remote psycodelia influence after the leaf turtle (and some remote memories of Moebius/Arzach atmospheres in mind, France sure knows and maybe you all). It was made with a Copic Drawing Pen (fantaaaastic tool!!) for the linework and Stabilo 68, 88 and Faber Castell Pitt for the color.

19th Worldwide SketchCrawl in Bologna

Some days ago I went to Bologna for the 19th SketchCrawl (Bologna's 2nd SketchCrawl and mine too). It was a very hot day and we tried not to go beyond the shadows (maybe we behaved as vampires but sun could actually make us become ashes). Any way it was a great day and I made a lot of sketches: 28 on my Big Partner and 12 on my little moleskine notebook.

These were all made on my big sketchbook (13 x 21 cm) with a Pentel brush pen and a Niji waterbrush loaded with Parker Quink brown ink, I must lighten it with much water since it was too dark on the firs sketches.
(Click on the image to see it bigger).

These were all made on my Moleskine notebook (9 x 14 cm) with a Pentel brush pen.
(Click on the image to see it bigger).

Idle Klutzy Earthy Artifacts (4th issue)

Previous issues here, here and here (but this doesn't end here).

Double handsaw, very useful for picture and door frames since it makes 2 opposite cuts at 45º from the bar... simultaneously!

Collapsible handsaw, very practical since handsaws use to be the biggest tools and can't get into the toolbox.

Twisted hammer, very useful to recycle twisted nails.

Safety pincers, specially designed to avoid any kind of pinches (to get hurt you must be a real masochist or absolutely idiot).

Wedge bolt, for an ultra strong adjustment: the harder you screw on, the better it fits.

2 way bolt, suitable for right and left handed people since you can screw it on clockwise or counterclockwise... it's up to you!

(To be continued).

Ever bean a leef turtle?

This is my contribution to Juj's japanese moleskine for the Moly_X_12. When I received Juj's moley I was working on an ad campaign for which the art director wanted a sort of atmosphere on a 1960'ish style. I seized the opportunity to reopen my old books by Mouse & Kelley, Victor Moscoso and obviously Robert Crumb. The first sketches (made when I had no idea of how to continue Juj's drawing) where considered "too acid and psychedelic" so I just did a cheesy op-art design that pleased everybody (but me). The agency cancelled all I really wanted to draw but give me the idea of what to do for Juj's moly. Surely it has been better this way.

Back to work

After a couple of lazy months here I am, back again to the work that really counts: creating Idle Klutzy Earthy Artifacts that will better all our lives.


"Feather Hammer", so light that even great-great-grandmother will use it.

"Disposable Hammer", very suitable for do-it-yourself emergency equipment.
Other artifacts here, here and here.
(To be continued)

More garabatos

Here is another load of garabatos I made on the last month.