Crowd & snake v.1 (doodle)

I started this in november on a train between Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand and finished it on the way back. I put some watercolor while waiting on the airport. It has something to do with this, apart that both started as non planned doodles and suddenly found their way.

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.