Fair sketches

Last week, as every year, I went to the Bologna Children's Book Fair. My 8th fair and I'd say not the best edition. I took a vague walk, meet some friends and of course... drew some sketches.

Italian artist Davide Cappelletti while drawing at the stand of the Scuola del Fumetto di Milano.

I've known on his website that Australian artist Matt Ottley is green/red blind, but you should have seen the fantastic drawings he was making while I took this sketch (you can always take a look at his books).

I don't know who this left handed guy could be. He had a very elegant suit (taylor made I'd say) and filled some absolutely boring chart with so much concentration.

I don't know why I've started to draw more and more comic framed pages. I've fought against horror vacui for years and I guess this is the proof I've lost.




blogged at urban sketchers.

Enough was enough some time ago

I made this drawings a couple of weeks ago on a demonstration of Il Popolo Viola (the Purple People). Seems that finally some italians are waking up of the Berlusconi's sleep, seeing that it was always a smiling nightmare and that they are in danger.

Just one sample: tomorrow there will be a regional election and while Mr. B. banned all political debates on TV 3 weeks ago, yesterday he made speeches and interviews in prime time on 5 (of 7) national TV channels.

Am I wrong or this is some kind of new fascism?

blogged at urban sketchers.

Cacharritos

Cacharrito (it sounds more or less kah-cha-rree-toh) is more or less the same as cachivache.

These are some more I've found here and there at home: a wooden hen shaped pencil sharpener (one of the very first my son had); a little shell he found in Palinuro in summer 2003; a beautiful cheap porcelain box of uncertain origin; a tin legged pot 1/10 scaled (60 cm in real life) that comes from my grand mother and was very old in the 60's when I was a child (my favorite cachivache) , a tiny round alabaster box I stoled from my parents house and an uncertain swinging head animal I bought in Guadalajara (Mexico).

Cachivaches (spanish), tchotchkes or pishifkes (yiddish), knickknacks (english), ıvır zıvır (turkish), bugigangas (portuguese). More languages are welcome.

Cachivaches

Cachivache (it sounds more or less kah-chee-vah-cheh) is a fantastic spanish word that means piece of old junk. Some days ago I took a walk at home drawing some of the cachivaches I have. I love so much many of them but I'm not sure how long some others will last (actually I'm not sure how they arrived and I wonder why they live on my shelves).

In this page there is a pot from IKEA, a devil shaped pen holder, a glass candlestick from my grand mother, an elephant puppet from India, a duck shape badge from Cuba, a wooden methane molecule shaped massage gadget, a mysterious wooden fish nobody remember how arrived home but that I like so much, a wooden woman figure from Kenya bought in Rome by my parents, an old counter bell, a little rolling stone my son gave me when he was 6 years old as if it was a gold nugget, a house shaped anti stress toy, a bilboquet from Paris, a calabrian liquorice box, a french porphyry egg, and a little glass ashtray from Naples.

Cachivaches (spanish), tchotchkes or pishifkes (yiddish), knickknacks (english), ıvır zıvır (turkish). More languages are welcome.

Doodled people

On february 2008 I started a sketchbook just for doodles. Almost 2 years and 167 pages after it's finished. Through all this time I've filled it with many weird scribbles, some zenish improvisations, abstract (and non) ideas, many non ideas at all that kind of purposeless stuff.

Doodles (english), garabatos (spanish), scarabocchi (italian), gargots (catalan), rabiscos (portuguese), griffonages, or gribouillis (french), gekritzel (german), каляки-маляки / kalyaki-malyaki or каракули / karakuli (russian), krabbel (dutch), draskulki/драскулки or draskanitzi/драсканици (bulgarian).
New languages are welcome.

Bologna SketchCrawl went to Mantova

Saturday 27 february, 26th Worldwide SketchCrawl. We decided to change scenario and it was a great success, at a certain moment we were 24, about twice the usual people on our meetings. There was a comic fair in Mantova and I think this was another allure for many of us.

I started near home at the meeting point, and continued this sort of minimal sketches at Piazza Sordello, now in Mantova.

Some sketching mates while drawing...

...some sketching mates while waiting their dishes.

After lunch we went to the lake shore where I took Santa Barbara's bell tower...

...and some of the lake inhabitants.

Then went back to the centre passing by Castel San Giorgio.

I love so much this castle so I drew it twice.

After the dusk we went to a bar to drink something hot.

A few of us stayed in Mantova for dinner, and I took the opportunity for going back to minimal sketches.

blogged at urban sketchers.