Going hi tech

After many working hours from the design board and huge amounts of money, sweat and talent invested, here is our new long waited WC Holder 2.0.
Someone proposed to call it iHolder but it was decided that such name could be too gorish.


Now seriously. I didn't got satisfied with the WC Holder 1.0 (see this link) and I remained wondering how could I improve it.

Then one day I saw a set of methacrylate photo holders as these:


I bought the entire set (about 10 euros in a Carrefour hypermarket) and took the smallest one...


...glued a couple of fridge magnets on it...


...and that's all. No more steps.

The palette of the WC box is also a new version (see the old one on this link). Now I'm using just the 3 basic but unsaturated colors: indigo instead of blue, burnt sienna instead of red and yellow ochre (more exactly quinacridone gold) instead of yellow, all them from Winsor & Newton.

The comparison between the version 1.0 in cardboard and 2.0 in methacrylate needs no further explanations.

For the device at work here are a couple of pictures made by Víctor Martínez "Swasky".

Teaching (and learning)

Drawings made while teaching the course "Drawing the City" about which I blogged some weeks ago. Every lesson consists of about half an our in the classroom and 2 and a half hours of drawing from life. I always make the same exercises I propose to the the students.

In this case, identifying simple volumes...


...before drawing architecture (this is a crossroads in Poblenou 100 meters far from my house).


Here we went again to see a rehearsal of the Castellers de Sants for drawing people.


For the next drawings we went to the Parc de la Ciutadella and the idea was to draw without lines, just color stains were allowed.


Drawings from other people at the course can be seen on this flickr group.

Profe otra vez

No daba clases desde hace años y de repente 2 cursos a la vez.
Del 1 al 3 de julio voy a ser uno de los profesores del III Curso De Vuelta cone el Cuaderno que organiza la Escuela Superior de Diseño de Aragón, esta vez en Teruel. El curso estará centrado en los cuadernos de campo y naturaleza (veré cómo me las apaño porque no estoy yo muy cerca de ese centro). Pasaremos también un día en Dinopolis dibujando dinosaurios, me pregunto si en vivo. El resto del equipo de profesores es como para quitar el hipo. Se siente uno halagado de estar metido en el mismo saco con Mauricio Antón, Severino Pallaruelo, Emily Nudd-Mitchell y Pedro Fernandes.
Esta vez lo he puesto en cristiano..., por si alguno quiere picar. Yo fui el año pasado como alumno y fue estupendo. Tenía pensado ir éste también pero va a resultar un poco incompatible.

For the second time this year I'll play the teacher (hope this will not become a bad habit). From july 1st to 3rd and organized by the Escuela Superior de Diseño de Aragón I'll be one of the teachers of the 3rd edition of the course De Vuelta cone el Cuaderno that will take 'lace in Teruel. This time the course will be centered mainly in nature (and dinosaurs, we will pass one day at Dinopolis). I'm really flattered for beeing part of a team of teachers such as Mauricio Antón, Severino Pallaruelo, Emily Nudd-Mitchell and Pedro Fernandes.

Home landscapes

The last summer we left Italy. On the months before I felt the almost compulsive need of drawing our home in Casalecchio, near Bologna. It was somehow a way for fixing it in my mind. Of course I took some photos and made a video, but you know... when you draw, you look and stop and live and –maybe– see the scene. When I take photos I feel I can't see all I want because the camera is between my eye and the scene. It's the camera that works but just taking data.

El Palau de la Musica Catalana

Some weeks ago the Circle Artistic Sant Lluc organized a visit to the Palau de la Musica Catalana in which we were allowed to walk freely on every part of it. This means we could go on stage or near the organ tubes and some other points usually not so accessible.
This auditorium is a masterpiece of Catalan Modernisme by Domènech i Montaner, it seems more a cathedral than a concert hall. Every little corner is full of symbols about music and musicians throughout times and places. While I was drawing I've heard the explanations of the guides for the visitor groups for 6 times (2 in spanish, in 2 catalan, in 2 english). I liked very much that, since Domènech was ideologically quite liberal, there are no private boxes.

I started with a general view which I colored using a tiny watercolor box with just sepia, gold ochre and indigo.

Since I had no room for the gorgeous stained-glass skylight I made a drawing apart for it (and added some liquid watercolor at home).

The next drawings are the 18 muses that decorate the back of the stage.
The color of the background mosaic is always sepia as in the first drawing, but I thought is was boring to make all the 3 drawings on the same color so I used the 3 colors of the palette.

Castellers de Sants

Some weeks ago, with the usual wild bunch (César, Lapin, Sagar, Víctor and Javier de Blas who had stopped for a few days in Barcelona on his long trip throughout the Mediterranean coast), I had the opportunity to attend a couple of the indoor rehearsals of the Castellers de Sants (Sants is a neighborhood of Barcelona). They are one of the most famous collas (teams) of castellers in all Catalonia. This are not my first castells live but in this occasion I could see everything from different high levels and I could appreciate the intricate way they construct the basis, the different figures and roles, and the complex organization and hierarchy of the colla.
At some times I had to stop drawing: seeing l'enxaneta (the 6-8 y.o. child that ends the castell) scaling a human tower till the 9th "floor" is really hypnotizing. I felt as pushing with my eyes to help all that remain standing.






Here are all them building a 9 floor castle.

I'll play the teacher

From may 7 until july 16 and organized by the Circle Sant Lluc, there will be a course entitled "Drawing the city" in which the teachers/professors/instructors or whatever will be Victor Martínez "Swasky" and yours truly.
For 10 weeks we we'll try to tell our (not so) innocent students the secrets and wonders of urban sketching, sketch crawling, sketchbookism and other bad habits.
And draw, most of all we will draw.

Some results here and here's the flickr group.

I love Paris in the springtime...

...but this drawings were made in an unkind february.
I'd bet Cole Porter was not an urban sketcher.

Leaving on a jet plane

Paris 4 (days), airports 4 (hours), flights 4 (hours). Tie score.

Set decoration warehouse (or so)

Some weeks ago I went with Lapin, Sagar and Pierre Amoudry to visit (and draw of course) one of the most amazing and weird places I've ever seen. Imagine an enormous 3 flat building full –I mean full as a can of sardines– of everything you could ever need for every kind of movie or stage set, from any sort of furnishing or lamp, to ancient maps, army radios, butcher knives, paper dolls, venetian masks, torture tools, musical instruments, chinese umbrellas, hats, stoves, umbrellas, tackles, coffins... absolutely everything!
I still wonder how could they know where any item (let's say) could be when they rented their stuff for films such as Biutiful or Vicky Cristina Barcelona.