And so this is Christmas...

Well this is a Christmas greeting card (or so).
I have a love-hate relationship with this season. Christmas has given me some of the best and the worse moments of my life. Most of the first happened when I was a child and so I keep a feeling of miss since it's impossible to feel that euphoria as an adult. My son made me try to give him the same mythic Christmas I had, and this took out some hidden feelings. Christmas is now a mix of naive good willing, gorgeous meals, and choral carols on one side, and shopping mall lightings (turned on in october) and chilling front pages on the other.
I can't do without this (not so) opposite points of view. I don't want to do without any of them.
Juj should say it's a little schizophrenic, and she should be right as usual.
Anyway, I guess I'm not so original, I bet many of you feel similar.

... and what have you drawn? Ehm..., nothing...
but here are a couple of presents:

this is from my Dr. Jeckill me:



and this is from my Mr. Hyde me:
http://www.joecartoon.com/games/11

Merry Christmas to you all.

Every Doodle Matters #9

"An organized chaos" or in other words, 100 challenges -or so- in one go. But people who love logical games -as me- could say that one of the missing challenges is just #9 since it's self-referential an then not included itself in the drawing. If this could be right then the title would be wrong so I could entitle it EDM #42 "something you are thankful for" (it's was a great day when I found this group), or EDM #61 "a group of 2 or more similar objects (what about 100 or so EDM Challenges?), or EDM #71 "something representing your favorite sport" (I used to love cricket, curling, petanque and extreme ironing, but EDM'ing is much better, even if not so calorie burning). Of course, there's so much inspiration I owe Andrea. Thank you!

In the verdant hills of Tuscany

The door on the left side is the entrance to our friends G&K's house, and the place is a little borgo called Bonazza, near Florence. We were here last weekend for our italian, english, spanish and of course american Thanksgiving. I made this sketch with the intention of adding some watercolor wash at home, but since I had used a not waterproof pen I couldn't do this way, so I put color with photoshop.

A coat of many colors, yellow green on either side

My old drawings chest seems to be bottomless. Obviously I don't post every relic I find here and there, but from time to time an old drawing catch my attention because of... I don't know what, and so I get through the embarrassment of showing my beginner drawings... and well... ladies & gentlemen... my first published cover. It was made in 1983 for a magazine about puzzles, logical games and recreational mathematics. As you can suppose by the theme, it was a very very little magazine and they payed me a very very little money, but I was very very glad anyway. (And finally we knew that The Thinker, is actually thinking about some hard logical problem proposed by the magazine he holds in hand. So naïf...)
It was made with black, red, blue, green, sepia and yellow inks. I used Gillot, Brandauer and Faber Castell nibs, a different one for each color. I've never repeated again this technique.

All around me are familiar faces

About two months ago, tidying up my old folders I found a lot of forgotten drawings, many of which I've now posted here.
My last archaeological loot (and now I'll must upload just new drawigs) is a series of portraits. These are two of them made in 1985 ca., you can see the rest here.

I had a big surprise seeing again the crosshatching in Duke's collar because it reminded me -far in the distance- the technique of my admired France.
It was made with a rapidograph (our beloved Pigma Micron type fibre pen didn't exist then). For this kind of work, the only choice was this or the dip pen.

This is one of the few drawings of which I don't conserve the original. I made a good photocopy for me, and gave the original to a friend of mine, great fan of Buñuel as me.

Snakes in the ocean, eels in the sea...

I've been wandering early and (mainly) late
(but not) from New York City to the Golden Gate (maybe one of these days).
And (luckily) it don't look like I'll ever stop my wandering.

EDM#18 The view from two windows

I drew this last weekend looking out of the window of R&C's House in Naples. The churh on the center is Santa Teresa degli Scalzi. On the background Sant'Elmo's Castle and the Charterhouse of San Martino. I took also some photos that you can see here.

I've found this a week ago lost in some folder. I made it in august 2003 sitting in the balcony of our house in Zola Predosa, where we lived since our arrival in Italy (july 2001) to august 2005 when we moved to our current house. I didn't know I was making EDM#18 "Draw the view from a window".

Give me a healthy mind, Lord

I believe in the religion of this prayer.
I did this as a gift for my friends R&C in 1993.
The photo came out really bad but the text is still readable and that's all that matters.

Tagged

I've been tagged by Felicity to tell 7 facts about me, here they are:
1. As well as Felicity, I have different ears too. I didn't knew it till the late 80's when I tried to put on some earphones and I just couldn't do it with the right side one.
2. I used to sing in an amateur choir as a bass-baritone. Beeing inside a Monteverdi's madrigal is a big, big, big experience.
3. Some times I used to work as a woodworker in my father's workshop. I didn't reach to learn the trade.
4. I gave up smoking on september 6, 1998. The method was the old "here, now an forever". I just hid my last Camel pack with about half the cigarettes. I found it months after while arranging my drawers and throw it away.
5. I started three degrees: Psychology, Graphic Design and Interior Design. I didn't ended none of them.
6. I don't like metallic stuff as bracelets or chains. I almost don't use watches (I use to see the hour on my cell phone). I have no wedding ring.
7. For some months I've been a lifeguard in a swimming pool.

Love letters

I made this in the spring of 1995. A month before we had known that Roberta was pregnant, and Fabio was just a little ampersand without a name. It's one of the very few of my works that hangs on a wall (in this case at home, obviously).
I've been very interested in calligraphy and lettering in the past. I used to have a very "typographic" approach to graphic design when I used to do this work. Now I just handwrite the titles and comments of my sketches (and also the new header for my blog).
I've uploaded some other "letters" here.